cornéevscornesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#33,194
“cornée” frequency rank
#13,556
“cornes” frequency rank
46750
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cornée cornes
Definition Partie transparente insérée dans la sclérotique de l’œil devant le cristallin. Pluriel de corne.

Where the eye mixes cornée and cornes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cornée
6 ch
cornes

Why the eye confuses cornée with cornes

A purely visual mix-up. cornée (\kɔʁ.ne\) and cornes (\kɔʁn\) 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 46750, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cornée is recorded at frequency rank #33,194, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁ.ne\. cornes is at rank #13,556, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁn\.

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 46750, this pair ranks #192,414 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cornée vs cornes

Shared letters: cenor. Private to "cornée": é. Private to "cornes": s.

"cornée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "cornes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cornesccornes · conres · corens · corness · cornnes · cornse · corrnes · crones

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cornée" for "cornes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔʁ.ne\ versus \kɔʁn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cornée" vs "cornes" - which ranks higher?
"cornes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,556 in our French list, against #33,194 for "cornée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cornée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cornes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,414 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cornée" and "cornes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conde vs cornée". 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 #192,414 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