cerisevsceseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,360
“cerise” frequency rank
#47,212
“cese” frequency rank
58572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cerise cese
Definition Fruit comestible du cerisier charnu, petit et sphérique et à la peau généralement rouge, qui est une drupe. Cessation, action de cesser.

Where the eye mixes cerise and cese

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cerise runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against cese's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
cerise
4 ch
cese

Visual trap between cerise and cese

A purely visual mix-up. cerise (\sə.ʁiz\) and cese (\ˈθese\) 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 58572, 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\. cese is at rank #47,212, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈθese\.

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 58572, this pair ranks #108,275 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cerise vs cese

Shared letters: ces. Private to "cerise": ir. Private to "cese": -.

"cerise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "cese" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceriseccerise · ceirse · ceries · cerisse · cerrise · cersie · creise · ecrise
  • ceseccese · cees · csee · ecse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cerise" and "cese" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sə.ʁiz\ versus \ˈθese\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "cerise" or "cese" show up more?
"cerise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,360 in our French list, against #47,212 for "cese". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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 "cese" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #108,275 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cerise" and "cese" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cese". 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 #108,275 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