amatricevsavariceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#38,131
“amatrice” frequency rank
#37,673
“avarice” frequency rank
75804
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amatrice avarice
Definition (Suivi de « de ») Celle qui a de l’attachement, du goût pour quelque chose. Attachement excessif à la possession d’argent, de richesses, sans en faire l’usage.

Where the eye mixes amatrice and avarice

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. amatrice runs 8 letters (VCVCCVCV) against avarice's 7 (VCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
amatrice
7 ch
avarice

Why the eye confuses amatrice with avarice

A purely visual mix-up. amatrice (\a.ma.tʁis\) and avarice (\a.va.ʁis\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amatrice is recorded at frequency rank #38,131, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ma.tʁis\. avarice is at rank #37,673, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.va.ʁis\.

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 75804, this pair ranks #32,968 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of amatrice vs avarice

Shared letters: aceir. Private to "amatrice": mt. Private to "avarice": v.

"amatrice" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCV  ·  "avarice" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • amatrice ← aamtrice · amartice · amatirce · amatrcie · amatricce · amatriec · amatrrice · amattrice
  • avarice ← aavrice · avairce · avarcie · avaricce · avariec · avarrice · avraice · avvarice

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "amatrice" for "avarice" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.ma.tʁis\ versus \a.va.ʁis\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "amatrice" vs "avarice" - which ranks higher?
"avarice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,673 in our French list, against #38,131 for "amatrice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "amatrice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "avarice" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,968 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amatrice" and "avarice" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amatrice vs apatride". 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 #32,968 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