ceivsceintConfusable pair

Quick tell: cei is a article, ceint is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cei” is an article and “ceint” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,876
“cei” frequency rank
#46,637
“ceint” frequency rank
78513
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cei ceint
Definition Article adjectival (ou démonstratif) nominatif et accusatif masculin pluriel, généralement traduit par « les ». Participe passé masculin singulier de ceindre.

Letter map: cei vs ceint

Shared letters muted; letters that set cei and ceint apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. cei runs 3 letters (CVV) against ceint's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
cei
5 ch
ceint

Role in the sentence - cei and ceint

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cei is anarticle and ceintaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “cei” sits inside “ceint”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78513, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cei is recorded at frequency rank #31,876, classified as anarticle. ceint is at rank #46,637, tagged as averb, pronounced \sɛ̃\.

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 78513, this pair ranks #25,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cei vs ceint

Shared letters: cei. Private to "cei": -. Private to "ceint": nt.

"cei" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "ceint" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceint ← cceint · ceinnt · ceintt · ceitn · cenit · cient · ecint

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cei" and "ceint" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cei" is an article and "ceint" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cei" or "ceint" show up more?
"cei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,876 in our French list, against #46,637 for "ceint". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cei" and "ceint".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ceint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cei" and "ceint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ceint vs chient". 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 #25,549 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