cavevsCrieWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cave is a adjective, Crie is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cave” is an adjective and “Crie” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,919
“cave” frequency rank
#6,488
“Crie” frequency rank
11407
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cave Crie
Definition Creux, non plein. Membre féminin de la nation crie.

Where the eye mixes cave and Crie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cave
4 ch
Crie

Visual trap between cave and Crie

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cave is \kav\ while Crie is \kʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11407, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cave is recorded at frequency rank #4,919, classified as anadj, pronounced \kav\. Crie is at rank #6,488, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁi\.

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 11407, this pair ranks #409,263 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cave vs Crie

Shared letters: ce. Private to "cave": av. Private to "Crie": ir.

"cave" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Crie" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caveacve · caev · cavve · ccave · cvae
  • Crieccrie · crei · crrie · rcie

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cave" and "Crie" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cave" is an adjective and "Crie" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cave" or "Crie"?
"cave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,919 in our French list, against #6,488 for "Crie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cave" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Crie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #409,263 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cave" and "Crie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs Crie". 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 #409,263 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