cesevscloseConfusable pair

Quick tell: cese is a noun, close is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#47,212
“cese” frequency rank
#10,842
“close” frequency rank
58054
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cese close
Definition Cessation, action de cesser. Féminin singulier de clos.

Where the eye mixes cese and close

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cese
5 ch
close

Visual trap between cese and close

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cese is \ˈθese\ while close is \kloz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58054, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cese is recorded at frequency rank #47,212, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈθese\. close is at rank #10,842, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kloz\.

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 58054, this pair ranks #111,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cese vs close

Shared letters: ces. Private to "cese": -. Private to "close": lo.

"cese" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "close" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ceseccese · cees · csee · ecse
  • closecclose · cllose · cloes · closse · clsoe · colse · lcose

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cese" and "close" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cese" is a noun and "close" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cese" or "close" show up more?
"close" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,842 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cese" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "close" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #111,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cese" and "close" 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 #111,339 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