coïtvscriaTell them apart

Which to use

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

#41,723
“coït” frequency rank
#39,731
“cria” frequency rank
81454
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coït cria
Definition Accouplement sexuel. Petit des camélidés d’Amérique : lama, alpaga, vigogne ou guanaco.

Where the eye mixes coït and cria

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. coït (CVCC) and cria (CCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
coït
4 ch
cria

Why the eye confuses coït with cria

A purely visual mix-up. coït (\kɔ.it\) and cria (\kʁi.ja\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81454, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coït is recorded at frequency rank #41,723, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.it\. cria is at rank #39,731, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁi.ja\.

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 81454, this pair ranks #18,712 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of coït vs cria

Shared letters: c. Private to "coït": otï. Private to "cria": air.

"coït" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cria" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cria ← ccria · cira · crai · crria · rcia

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "coït" for "cria" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ.it\ versus \kʁi.ja\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "coït" or "cria"?
"cria" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,731 in our French list, against #41,723 for "coït". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "coït" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cria" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,712 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coït" and "cria" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coït vs coon". 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 #18,712 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