carievscrimWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#34,453
“carie” frequency rank
#37,259
“crim” frequency rank
71712
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carie crim
Definition Destruction des os et des dents par voie d’ulcération. Criminel.

Where the eye mixes carie and crim

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
carie
4 ch
crim

Visual trap between carie and crim

A purely visual mix-up. carie (\ka.ʁi\) and crim (\kɹɪm\) 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 71712, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carie is recorded at frequency rank #34,453, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.ʁi\. crim is at rank #37,259, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɹɪm\.

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 71712, this pair ranks #46,563 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of carie vs crim

Shared letters: cir. Private to "carie": ae. Private to "crim": m.

"carie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "crim" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carieacrie · carei · ccarie
  • crimccrim · cirm · crimm · crmi · crrim · rcim

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "carie" for "crim" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ka.ʁi\ versus \kɹɪm\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "carie" or "crim"?
"carie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,453 in our French list, against #37,259 for "crim". 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 "carie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crim" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,563 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carie" and "crim" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CIP vs crim". 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 #46,563 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