CérèsvscruesTell them apart

Quick tell: Cérès is a name, crues is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Cérès” is a name and “crues” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,738
“Cérès” frequency rank
#15,117
“crues” frequency rank
54855
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cérès crues
Definition Déesse romaine de l’agriculture, des moissons et de la fécondité ; fille de Saturne. Féminin pluriel de cru.

Where the eye mixes Cérès and crues

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Cérès (CVCVC) and crues (CCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
Cérès
5 ch
crues

Look-alike desk: Cérès vs crues

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Cérès is \se.ʁɛs\ while crues is \kʁy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54855, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Cérès is recorded at frequency rank #39,738, classified as aname, pronounced \se.ʁɛs\. crues is at rank #15,117, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁy\.

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 54855, this pair ranks #131,231 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Cérès vs crues

Shared letters: crs. Private to "Cérès": èé. Private to "crues": eu.

"Cérès" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "crues" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crues ← ccrues · creus · crrues · cruess · cruse · rcues

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Cérès" and "crues" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Cérès" is a name and "crues" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Cérès" or "crues"?
"crues" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,117 in our French list, against #39,738 for "Cérès". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Cérès" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #131,231 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cérès" and "crues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs Cérès". 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 #131,231 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