ceivschériTell them apart

Quick tell: cei is a article, chéri is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#31,876
“cei” frequency rank
#6,062
“chéri” frequency rank
37938
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cei chéri
Definition Article adjectival (ou démonstratif) nominatif et accusatif masculin pluriel, généralement traduit par « les ». Sincèrement aimé.

Letter map: cei vs chéri

Shared letters muted; letters that set cei and chéri apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
cei
5 ch
chéri

Part-of-speech tell for cei / chéri

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cei is anarticle and chérianadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37938, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cei is recorded at frequency rank #31,876, classified as anarticle. chéri is at rank #6,062, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ʃe.ʁi\.

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 37938, this pair ranks #258,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cei vs chéri

Shared letters: ci. Private to "cei": e. Private to "chéri": hré.

"cei" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "chéri" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cei" and "chéri" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cei" is an article and "chéri" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cei" or "chéri"?
"chéri" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,062 in our French list, against #31,876 for "cei". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "cei" and "chéri". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "chéri" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #258,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cei" and "chéri" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cei". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #258,889 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