cerisevscrimeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#11,360
“cerise” frequency rank
#1,907
“crime” frequency rank
13267
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cerise crime
Definition Fruit comestible du cerisier charnu, petit et sphérique et à la peau généralement rouge, qui est une drupe. Infraction très grave, à la morale ou à la loi.

Where the eye mixes cerise and crime

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

6 ch
cerise
5 ch
crime

Why the eye confuses cerise with crime

A purely visual mix-up. cerise (\sə.ʁiz\) and crime (\kʁim\) 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 13267, 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\. crime is at rank #1,907, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁim\.

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 13267, this pair ranks #401,739 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cerise vs crime

Shared letters: ceir. Private to "cerise": s. Private to "crime": m.

"cerise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "crime" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceriseccerise · ceirse · ceries · cerisse · cerrise · cersie · creise · ecrise
  • crimeccrime · cirme · criem · crimme · crmie · crrime · rcime

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cerise" and "crime" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\sə.ʁiz\ versus \kʁim\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cerise" or "crime"?
"crime" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,907 in our French list, against #11,360 for "cerise". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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 "crime" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #401,739 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cerise" and "crime" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cerise 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 #401,739 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