ceivsculConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#31,876
“cei” frequency rank
#999
“cul” frequency rank
32875
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cei cul
Definition Article adjectival (ou démonstratif) nominatif et accusatif masculin pluriel, généralement traduit par « les ». Derrière d’un animal, d’un humain, ses fesses, son postérieur.

Letter map: cei vs cul

Shared letters muted; letters that set cei and cul apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
cei
3 ch
cul

Part-of-speech tell for cei / cul

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cei is anarticle and culanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32875, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cei is recorded at frequency rank #31,876, classified as anarticle. cul is at rank #999, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ky\.

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 32875, this pair ranks #294,371 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cei vs cul

Shared letters: c. Private to "cei": ei. Private to "cul": lu.

"cei" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "cul" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cei" for "cul" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cei" is an article and "cul" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cei" vs "cul" - which ranks higher?
"cul" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #999 in our French list, against #31,876 for "cei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cul" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #294,371 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cei" and "cul" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cei". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #294,371 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