centimesvscentréesTell them apart

Quick tell: centimes is a noun, centrées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“centimes” is a noun and “centrées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,668
“centimes” frequency rank
#35,420
“centrées” frequency rank
44088
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature centimes centrées
Definition Pluriel de centime. Féminin pluriel de centré.

Where the eye mixes centimes and centrées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

8 ch
centimes
8 ch
centrées

Visual trap between centimes and centrées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: centimes is \sɑ̃.tim\ while centrées is \sɑ̃.tʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44088, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

centimes is recorded at frequency rank #8,668, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɑ̃.tim\. centrées is at rank #35,420, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɑ̃.tʁe\.

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 44088, this pair ranks #213,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of centimes vs centrées

Shared letters: censt. Private to "centimes": im. Private to "centrées": .

"centimes" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "centrées" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • centimesccentimes · cenitmes · cenntimes · centiems · centimess · centimmes · centimse · centmies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "centimes" and "centrées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "centimes" is a noun and "centrées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "centimes" or "centrées" show up more?
"centimes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,668 in our French list, against #35,420 for "centrées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "centimes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "centrées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #213,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "centimes" and "centrées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "centers vs centrées". 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 #213,145 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