clésvscréeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“clés” and “crée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,666
“clés” frequency rank
#2,272
“crée” frequency rank
4938
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clés crée
Definition Pluriel de clé. Sorte de toile.

Where the eye mixes clés and crée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
clés
4 ch
crée

Visual trap between clés and crée

A purely visual mix-up. clés (\kle\) and crée (\kʁe.ə\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4938, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clés is recorded at frequency rank #2,666, classified as anoun, pronounced \kle\. crée is at rank #2,272, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁe.ə\.

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 4938, this pair ranks #430,310 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of clés vs crée

Shared letters: . Private to "clés": ls. Private to "crée": er.

"clés" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "crée" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "clés" for "crée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kle\ versus \kʁe.ə\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "clés" or "crée" show up more?
"crée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,272 in our French list, against #2,666 for "clés". 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 "clés" and "crée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #430,310 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clés" and "crée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs clés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #430,310 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