Which to use
“chemin” and “cheminée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #735
- “chemin” frequency rank
- #8,671
- “cheminée” frequency rank
- 9406
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | chemin | cheminée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Voie, route pratiquée pour communiquer, pour aller d’un lieu à un autre. | Construction abritant un âtre, où l’on fait du feu, et comportant un conduit pour donner issue à la fumée. |
Where the eye mixes chemin and cheminée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses chemin with cheminée
A purely visual mix-up. chemin (\ʃə.mɛ̃\) and cheminée (\ʃə.mi.ne\) 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 extra letter(s) - “chemin” sits inside “cheminée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9406, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
chemin is recorded at frequency rank #735, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃə.mɛ̃\. cheminée is at rank #8,671, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃə.mi.ne\.
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 9406, this pair ranks #416,778 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of chemin vs cheminée
Shared letters: cehimn. Private to "chemin": -. Private to "cheminée": é.
"chemin" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "cheminée" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- chemin ← cchemin · cehmin · cheimn · cheminn · chemmin · chemni · chhemin · chmein
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "chemin" and "cheminée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "chemin" vs "cheminée" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "chemin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cheminée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #416,778 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "chemin" and "cheminée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chemine vs cheminée". 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 #416,778 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.