cedarvscèdreConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#48,975
“cedar” frequency rank
#28,508
“cèdre” frequency rank
77483
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cedar cèdre
Definition Cèdre. Espèce d’arbre du genre Cedrus, conifère de grande taille de la famille des Pinacées, aux branches horizontales en plans superposés et à cônes globuleux et dressés, souvent utilisé pour l’ornementation et dont le bois passe pour incorruptible.

Where the eye mixes cedar and cèdre

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

5 ch
cedar
5 ch
cèdre

Visual trap between cedar and cèdre

A purely visual mix-up. cedar (\ˈsi.də\) and cèdre (\sɛdʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77483, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cedar is recorded at frequency rank #48,975, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈsi.də\. cèdre is at rank #28,508, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɛdʁ\.

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 77483, this pair ranks #28,225 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cedar vs cèdre

Shared letters: cder. Private to "cedar": a. Private to "cèdre": è.

"cedar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "cèdre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cedarccedar · cdear · ceadr · cedarr · ceddar · cedra · ecdar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cedar" for "cèdre" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈsi.də\ versus \sɛdʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cedar" or "cèdre" show up more?
"cèdre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,508 in our French list, against #48,975 for "cedar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "cedar" and "cèdre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cedar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cèdre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,225 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cedar" and "cèdre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cedar vs cédez". 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 #28,225 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