climvscrimWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,835
“clim” frequency rank
#37,259
“crim” frequency rank
54094
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clim crim
Definition Climatisation. Criminel.

Where the eye mixes clim and crim

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

4 ch
clim
4 ch
crim

Look-alike desk: clim vs crim

A purely visual mix-up. clim (\klim\) and crim (\kɹɪm\) 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 a single letter - l in “clim” becomes r in “crim”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54094, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clim is recorded at frequency rank #16,835, classified as anoun, pronounced \klim\. crim is at rank #37,259, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɹɪm\.

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 54094, this pair ranks #136,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of clim vs crim

Shared letters: cim. Private to "clim": l. Private to "crim": r.

"clim" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "crim" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • climcclim · cilm · climm · cllim · clmi · lcim
  • crimccrim · cirm · crimm · crmi · crrim · rcim

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "clim" for "crim" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\klim\ versus \kɹɪm\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "clim" or "crim"?
"clim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,835 in our French list, against #37,259 for "crim". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clim" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crim" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #136,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clim" and "crim" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CIP vs crim". 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 #136,346 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