travéevstraverseTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,074
“travée” frequency rank
#4,387
“traverse” frequency rank
43461
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature travée traverse
Definition Entre deux poutres, espace rempli par des solives. Action de traverser.

Where the eye mixes travée and traverse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. travée runs 6 letters (CCVCVV) against traverse's 8 (CCVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
travée
8 ch
traverse

Look-alike desk: travée vs traverse

A purely visual mix-up. travée (\tʁa.ve\) and traverse (\tʁa.vɛʁs\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43461, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

travée is recorded at frequency rank #39,074, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʁa.ve\. traverse is at rank #4,387, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tʁa.vɛʁs\.

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 43461, this pair ranks #217,893 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of travée vs traverse

Shared letters: aertv. Private to "travée": é. Private to "traverse": s.

"travée" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV  ·  "traverse" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • traverse ← rtaverse · tarverse · traevrse · traveres · traverrse · traversse · travesre · travrese

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "travée" for "traverse" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tʁa.ve\ versus \tʁa.vɛʁs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "travée" or "traverse"?
"traverse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,387 in our French list, against #39,074 for "travée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "travée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "traverse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #217,893 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "travée" and "traverse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "trance vs travée". 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 #217,893 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