Which to use
“cerise” is a noun and “cernée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,360
- “cerise” frequency rank
- #44,362
- “cernée” frequency rank
- 55722
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cerise | cernée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fruit comestible du cerisier charnu, petit et sphérique et à la peau généralement rouge, qui est une drupe. | Féminin singulier de cerné. |
Where the eye mixes cerise and cernée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cerise (CVCVCV) and cernée (CVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses cerise with cernée
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cerise is \sə.ʁiz\ while cernée is \sɛʁ.ne\. 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 55722, 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\. cernée is at rank #44,362, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɛʁ.ne\.
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 55722, this pair ranks #125,626 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cerise vs cernée
Shared letters: cer. Private to "cerise": is. Private to "cernée": né.
"cerise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "cernée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- cerise ← ccerise · ceirse · ceries · cerisse · cerrise · cersie · creise · ecrise
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cerise" for "cernée" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "cerise" or "cernée" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "cerise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cernée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #125,626 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cerise" and "cernée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carne vs cernée". 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 #125,626 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.