Which to use
“carafe” is a noun and “crade” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #35,851
- “carafe” frequency rank
- #36,340
- “crade” frequency rank
- 72191
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | carafe | crade |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sorte de bouteille de verre ou de cristal, avec ou sans bouchon, plus large par le bas que par le haut, qui sert principalement à contenir l’eau et quelquefois le vin ou les liqueurs que l’on sert à table. | Sale. |
Where the eye mixes carafe and crade
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. carafe runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against crade's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses carafe with crade
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: carafe is \ka.ʁaf\ while crade is \kʁad\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72191, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
carafe is recorded at frequency rank #35,851, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁaf\. crade is at rank #36,340, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁad\.
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 72191, this pair ranks #44,879 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of carafe vs crade
Shared letters: acer. Private to "carafe": f. Private to "crade": d.
"carafe" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "crade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "carafe" and "crade" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "carafe" vs "crade" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "carafe" and "crade" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "carafe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "crade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #44,879 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "carafe" and "crade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crade vs curage". 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 #44,879 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.