carmesvscimesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,089
“carmes” frequency rank
#37,727
“cimes” frequency rank
67816
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carmes cimes
Definition Pluriel de carme. Pluriel de cime.

Where the eye mixes carmes and cimes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. carmes runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against cimes's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
carmes
5 ch
cimes

Visual trap between carmes and cimes

A purely visual mix-up. carmes (\kaʁm\) and cimes (\sim\) 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 67816, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

carmes is recorded at frequency rank #30,089, classified as anoun, pronounced \kaʁm\. cimes is at rank #37,727, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sim\.

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 67816, this pair ranks #61,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of carmes vs cimes

Shared letters: cems. Private to "carmes": ar. Private to "cimes": i.

"carmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "cimes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carmesacrmes · camres · carems · carmess · carmmes · carmse · carrmes · ccarmes
  • cimesccimes · ciems · cimess · cimmes · cimse · cmies · icmes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "carmes" and "cimes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kaʁm\ versus \sim\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "carmes" vs "cimes" - which ranks higher?
"carmes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,089 in our French list, against #37,727 for "cimes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "carmes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cimes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,789 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carmes" and "cimes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs cimes". 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 #61,789 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