cernéevscornesConfusable pair

Quick tell: cernée is a adjective, cornes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cernée” is an adjective and “cornes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,362
“cernée” frequency rank
#13,556
“cornes” frequency rank
57918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cernée cornes
Definition Féminin singulier de cerné. Pluriel de corne.

Where the eye mixes cernée and cornes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cernée
6 ch
cornes

Visual trap between cernée and cornes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cernée is \sɛʁ.ne\ while cornes is \kɔʁn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cernée is recorded at frequency rank #44,362, classified as anadj, pronounced \sɛʁ.ne\. cornes is at rank #13,556, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁn\.

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 57918, this pair ranks #112,150 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cernée vs cornes

Shared letters: cenr. Private to "cernée": é. Private to "cornes": os.

"cernée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "cornes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cornesccornes · conres · corens · corness · cornnes · cornse · corrnes · crones

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cernée" and "cornes" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cernée" is an adjective and "cornes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cernée" or "cornes"?
"cornes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,556 in our French list, against #44,362 for "cernée". 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 "cernée" and "cornes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cernée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cornes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #112,150 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cernée" and "cornes" 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 #112,150 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