carie

\ka.ʁi\

/\ka.ʁi\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“carie” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #34,453) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#34,453
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
3
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Destruction des os et des dents par voie d’ulcération.

Corpus desk

Index FR-carie · carie · French

carie · rank #34,453 · 3 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #34,453
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-LOW 3 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH carignan

Nearest frequency peer: carignan (+1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « carie »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « carie » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

carie vs cri
60% similar
carie vs Cré
20% similar
carie vs crée
60% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for carie
PropertyValue
Headwordcarie
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ka.ʁi\
Letters5
Frequency rank#34,453
Misspellings tracked3
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « carie »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).cariese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « carignan » (#34,454), « Carine » (#34,455), « Capoue » (#34,450). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « carie » est au #34,453. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for carie is neighbouring look-alikes ("cri", "Cré", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ka.ʁi\. Frequency #34,453 among 8,609 “C” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for carie, with forms such as "acrie", "carei", and "ccarie". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cri", "Cré", "crée", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is carie, spelled C-A-R-I-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Destruction des os et des dents par voie d’ulcération.
  2. 2
    Maladie analogue par ses effets à la carie des animaux. Elle consiste en une altération progressive de la substance ligneuse des arbres, suivie de ramollissement.
  3. 3
    Maladie des graines céréales dans laquelle la farine est remplacée par une poussière qui n’est autre chose que la substance d’un champignon du genre Uredo (Uredo caries).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how carie appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Comme vous l’a dit Horace, la carie des os est commencée. À cet âge, les os sont encore si tendres !
  2. Le blé noir ou carie est commun, quoique depuis quelques années il se développe avec moins d'étendue; ce champignon parasite est réputé une maladie contagieuse par les cultivateurs , et sa persistance dans les champs où il s'est montré une première fois, vient à l'appui de leur croyance.

Synonyms

anthracnosecharbon

This word in other languages

cavity(English)caries(Español)Karies(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • acrie
  • carei
  • ccarie

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of carie - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

acrie2carei2ccarie1
Edit distance from "carie"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "carie"?
"carie" is spelled C-A-R-I-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ka.ʁi\.
What does "carie" mean?
As a noun, "carie" means: Destruction des os et des dents par voie d’ulcération.
What words are commonly confused with "carie"?
"carie" is commonly confused with "cri", "Cré", "crée". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "carie"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "carie" is \ka.ʁi\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "carie" come from?
"carie" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "carie", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

blida#34,437barde#34,433assit#34,424ardue#34,418

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list