craintvscréentConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#4,477
“craint” frequency rank
#7,295
“créent” frequency rank
11772
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature craint créent
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de craindre. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de créer.

Where the eye mixes craint and créent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
craint
6 ch
créent

Why the eye confuses craint with créent

A purely visual mix-up. craint (\kʁɛ̃\) and créent (\kʁe\) 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 11772, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

craint is recorded at frequency rank #4,477, classified as averb, pronounced \kʁɛ̃\. créent is at rank #7,295, tagged as averb, pronounced \kʁe\.

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 11772, this pair ranks #407,869 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of craint vs créent

Shared letters: cnrt. Private to "craint": ai. Private to "créent": .

"craint" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC  ·  "créent" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craintcarint · ccraint · crainnt · craintt · craitn · cranit · crraint · rcaint

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "craint" and "créent" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kʁɛ̃\ versus \kʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "craint" or "créent" show up more?
"craint" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,477 in our French list, against #7,295 for "créent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "craint" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "créent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #407,869 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "craint" and "créent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chient vs créent". 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 #407,869 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