cerisevscriéeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#11,360
“cerise” frequency rank
#37,260
“criée” frequency rank
48620
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cerise criée
Definition Fruit comestible du cerisier charnu, petit et sphérique et à la peau généralement rouge, qui est une drupe. Proclamation pour annoncer la vente des biens en justice.

Where the eye mixes cerise and criée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cerise runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against criée's 5 (CCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
cerise
5 ch
criée

Look-alike desk: cerise vs criée

A purely visual mix-up. cerise (\sə.ʁiz\) and criée (\kʁi.je\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48620, 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\. criée is at rank #37,260, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁi.je\.

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 48620, this pair ranks #177,418 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cerise vs criée

Shared letters: ceir. Private to "cerise": s. Private to "criée": é.

"cerise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "criée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceriseccerise · ceirse · ceries · cerisse · cerrise · cersie · creise · ecrise

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cerise" and "criée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sə.ʁiz\ versus \kʁi.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cerise" or "criée"?
"cerise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,360 in our French list, against #37,260 for "criée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cerise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "criée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #177,418 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cerise" and "criée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "calée vs criée". 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 #177,418 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