cheminevscheminéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: chemine is a verb, cheminée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chemine” is a verb and “cheminée” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,505
“chemine” frequency rank
#8,671
“cheminée” frequency rank
54176
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chemine cheminée
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de cheminer. Construction abritant un âtre, où l’on fait du feu, et comportant un conduit pour donner issue à la fumée.

Where the eye mixes chemine and cheminée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. chemine runs 7 letters (CCVCVCV) against cheminée's 8 (CCVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
chemine
8 ch
cheminée

Visual trap between chemine and cheminée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: chemine is \ʃə.min\ while cheminée is \ʃə.mi.ne\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chemine is recorded at frequency rank #45,505, classified as averb, pronounced \ʃə.min\. 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 54176, this pair ranks #135,734 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chemine vs cheminée

Shared letters: cehimn. Private to "chemine": -. Private to "cheminée": é.

"chemine" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV  ·  "cheminée" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cheminecchemine · cehmine · cheimne · chemien · cheminne · chemmine · chemnie · chhemine

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "chemine" and "cheminée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chemine" is a verb and "cheminée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "chemine" or "cheminée" show up more?
"cheminée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,671 in our French list, against #45,505 for "chemine". 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 "chemine" and "cheminée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chemine" 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 #135,734 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chemine" and "cheminée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chemine vs cheminer". 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 #135,734 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