cerisevscerisierTell them apart

Which to use

“cerise” and “cerisier” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,360
“cerise” frequency rank
#31,877
“cerisier” frequency rank
43237
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cerise cerisier
Definition Fruit comestible du cerisier charnu, petit et sphérique et à la peau généralement rouge, qui est une drupe. Arbre qui porte les cerises.

Where the eye mixes cerise and cerisier

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. cerise runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against cerisier's 8 (CVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
cerise
8 ch
cerisier

Visual trap between cerise and cerisier

A purely visual mix-up. cerise (\sə.ʁiz\) and cerisier (\sə.ʁi.zje\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43237, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cerise is recorded at frequency rank #11,360, classified as anoun, pronounced \sə.ʁiz\. cerisier is at rank #31,877, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sə.ʁi.zje\.

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 43237, this pair ranks #219,636 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cerise vs cerisier

Shared letters: ceirs. Private to "cerise": -. Private to "cerisier": -.

"cerise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "cerisier" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceriseccerise · ceirse · ceries · cerisse · cerrise · cersie · creise · ecrise
  • cerisierccerisier · ceirsier · ceriiser · ceriseir · cerisierr · cerisire · cerissier · cerrisier

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cerise" for "cerisier" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\sə.ʁiz\ versus \sə.ʁi.zje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cerise" or "cerisier"?
"cerise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,360 in our French list, against #31,877 for "cerisier". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cerise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cerisier" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #219,636 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cerise" and "cerisier" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cerisier vs cerisiers". 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 #219,636 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