têtuevstitusTell them apart

Which to use

“têtue” and “titus” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#42,667
“têtue” frequency rank
#23,395
“titus” frequency rank
66062
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature têtue titus
Definition Femme obstinée. Coiffure à la Titus, coiffure adoptée en 1792 en France où les cheveux sont courts, avec de petites mèches aplaties appliquées sur la tête ; ainsi dite parce qu’elle est imitée de la coiffure des bustes et statues de l’empereur Titus.

Where the eye mixes têtue and titus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. têtue (CVCVV) and titus (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
têtue
5 ch
titus

Why the eye confuses têtue with titus

A purely visual mix-up. têtue (\tɛ.ty\) and titus (\ti.tys\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66062, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

têtue is recorded at frequency rank #42,667, classified as anoun, pronounced \tɛ.ty\. titus is at rank #23,395, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ti.tys\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 66062, this pair ranks #69,502 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of têtue vs titus

Shared letters: tu. Private to "têtue": eê. Private to "titus": is.

"têtue" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "titus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • titus ← ittus · titsu · tittus · tituss · tiuts · ttitus · ttius

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "têtue" and "titus" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\tɛ.ty\ versus \ti.tys\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "têtue" or "titus" show up more?
"titus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,395 in our French list, against #42,667 for "têtue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "têtue" and "titus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "têtue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "titus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,502 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "têtue" and "titus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ténue vs têtue". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #69,502 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list