cevsceliWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ce is a determiner, celi is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ce” is a determiner and “celi” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25
“ce” frequency rank
#47,778
“celi” frequency rank
47803
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ce celi
Definition Déterminant utilisé pour mettre en évidence une chose ou une personne dont on a la représentation devant soi. Lorsque l’objet est en nombre multiple ou lorsqu’on veut appuyer encore plus sur ce qu’on veut montrer, on rajoute -ci ou -là (selon la distance) après le nom. Celui.

Letter map: ce vs celi

Shared letters muted; letters that set ce and celi apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
ce
4 ch
celi

Role in the sentence - ce and celi

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ce is adeterminer and celiapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ce” sits inside “celi”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47803, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ce is recorded at frequency rank #25, classified as adet, pronounced \sə\. celi is at rank #47,778, tagged as apron.

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 47803, this pair ranks #184,020 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ce vs celi

Shared letters: ce. Private to "ce": -. Private to "celi": il.

"ce" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "celi" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • celicceli · celli · clei · ecli

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ce" and "celi" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ce" is a determiner and "celi" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ce" or "celi"?
"ce" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25 in our French list, against #47,778 for "celi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "ce" and "celi". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "celi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #184,020 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ce" and "celi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "celi vs cese". 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 #184,020 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