craignaientvscraignentConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#28,120
“craignaient” frequency rank
#12,943
“craignent” frequency rank
41063
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature craignaient craignent
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de craindre. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de craindre.

Where the eye mixes craignaient and craignent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. craignaient runs 11 letters (CCVVCCVVVCC) against craignent's 9 (CCVVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch
craignaient
9 ch
craignent

Look-alike desk: craignaient vs craignent

A purely visual mix-up. craignaient (\kʁɛ.ɲɛ\) and craignent (\kʁɛɲ\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41063, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

craignaient is recorded at frequency rank #28,120, classified as averb, pronounced \kʁɛ.ɲɛ\. craignent is at rank #12,943, tagged as averb, pronounced \kʁɛɲ\.

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 41063, this pair ranks #235,801 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of craignaient vs craignent

Shared letters: aceginrt. Private to "craignaient": -. Private to "craignent": -.

"craignaient" · 11 letters · shape CCVVCCVVVCC  ·  "craignent" · 9 letters · shape CCVVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craignaient ← carignaient · ccraignaient · craginaient · craiganient · craiggnaient · craignaeint · craignaiennt · craignaientt
  • craignent ← carignent · ccraignent · craginent · craigennt · craiggnent · craignennt · craignentt · craignetn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "craignaient" for "craignent" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kʁɛ.ɲɛ\ versus \kʁɛɲ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "craignaient" or "craignent"?
"craignent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,943 in our French list, against #28,120 for "craignaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "craignaient" and "craignent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "craignaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "craignent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #235,801 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "craignaient" and "craignent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "craignaient vs craignais". 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 #235,801 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