carmesvscuresTell them apart

Which to use

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

#30,089
“carmes” frequency rank
#30,120
“cures” frequency rank
60209
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature carmes cures
Definition Pluriel de carme. Pluriel de cure.

Where the eye mixes carmes and cures

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
carmes
5 ch
cures

Why the eye confuses carmes with cures

A purely visual mix-up. carmes (\kaʁm\) and cures (\kyʁ\) 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 60209, 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\. cures is at rank #30,120, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kyʁ\.

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 60209, this pair ranks #98,854 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of carmes vs cures

Shared letters: cers. Private to "carmes": am. Private to "cures": u.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • carmesacrmes · camres · carems · carmess · carmmes · carmse · carrmes · ccarmes
  • curesccures · cuers · curess · curres · curse · ucres

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "carmes" for "cures" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kaʁm\ versus \kyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "carmes" or "cures"?
"carmes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,089 in our French list, against #30,120 for "cures". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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 "cures" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,854 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "carmes" and "cures" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courges vs cures". 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 #98,854 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