Which to use
“commère” and “commise” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,075
- “commère” frequency rank
- #16,097
- “commise” frequency rank
- 62172
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | commère | commise |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Personne qui est la marraine d’un même enfant, du point de vue du parrain, du père et de mère de l’enfant. | Femme qui fournit une aide dans certains métiers. |
Where the eye mixes commère and commise
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. commère and commise follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses commère with commise
A purely visual mix-up. commère (\kɔ.mɛʁ\) and commise (\kɔ.miz\) 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 62172, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
commère is recorded at frequency rank #46,075, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.mɛʁ\. commise is at rank #16,097, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.miz\.
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 62172, this pair ranks #88,489 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of commère vs commise
Shared letters: cemo. Private to "commère": rè. Private to "commise": is.
"commère" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "commise" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- commise ← ccommise · cmomise · comimse · comise · commies · commsie · ocmmise
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "commère" and "commise" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "commère" or "commise" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "commère" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "commise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #88,489 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "commère" and "commise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "commercer vs commère". 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 #88,489 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.