cimevscitezWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,745
“cime” frequency rank
#30,525
“citez” frequency rank
63270
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cime citez
Definition Partie la plus haute d’une montagne, d’un rocher, d’un arbre, etc. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent du verbe citer.

Where the eye mixes cime and citez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cime runs 4 letters (CVCV) against citez's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
cime
5 ch
citez

Why the eye confuses cime with citez

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cime is \sim\ while citez is \si.te\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cime is recorded at frequency rank #32,745, classified as anoun, pronounced \sim\. citez is at rank #30,525, tagged as averb, pronounced \si.te\.

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 63270, this pair ranks #82,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cime vs citez

Shared letters: cei. Private to "cime": m. Private to "citez": tz.

"cime" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "citez" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cimeccime · ciem · cimme · cmie · icme
  • citezccitez · cietz · citezz · cittez · citze · ctiez · ictez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cime" for "citez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cime" is a noun and "citez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cime" vs "citez" - which ranks higher?
"citez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,525 in our French list, against #32,745 for "cime". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cime" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "citez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #82,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cime" and "citez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cime vs ciro". 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 #82,831 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