craignaisvscraignaitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,548
“craignais” frequency rank
#15,843
“craignait” frequency rank
46391
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature craignais craignait
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de craindre. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de craindre.

Same sound, different letters: craignais vs craignait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. craignais and craignait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
craignais
9 ch
craignait

Homophone desk: craignais vs craignait

This is the hard kind. craignais and craignait are pronounced identically (\kʁɛ.ɲɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - s in “craignais” becomes t in “craignait”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46391, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

craignais is recorded at frequency rank #30,548, classified as averb, pronounced \kʁɛ.ɲɛ\. craignait is at rank #15,843, tagged as averb, pronounced \kʁɛ.ɲɛ\.

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 46391, this pair ranks #195,336 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of craignais vs craignait

Shared letters: acginr. Private to "craignais": s. Private to "craignait": t.

"craignais" · 9 letters · shape CCVVCCVVC  ·  "craignait" · 9 letters · shape CCVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craignais ← carignais · ccraignais · craginais · craiganis · craiggnais · craignaiss · craignasi · craignias
  • craignait ← carignait · ccraignait · craginait · craiganit · craiggnait · craignaitt · craignati · craigniat

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "craignais" and "craignait" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kʁɛ.ɲɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "craignais" vs "craignait" - which ranks higher?
"craignait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,843 in our French list, against #30,548 for "craignais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"craignais" and "craignait" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "craignais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "craignait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #195,336 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "craignais" and "craignait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "craignais vs craignons". 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 #195,336 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