CrévscréentTell them apart

Quick tell: Cré is a name, créent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Cré” is a name and “créent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,203
“Cré” frequency rank
#7,295
“créent” frequency rank
47498
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cré créent
Definition Ancien nom de la commune française Cré-sur-Loir. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de créer.

Same sound, different letters: Cré vs créent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. Cré runs 3 letters (CCV) against créent's 6 (CCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Cré
6 ch
créent

Same sound, different spelling - Cré / créent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: Cré and créent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is aname, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 3 extra letter(s) - “Cré” sits inside “créent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47498, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Cré is recorded at frequency rank #40,203, classified as aname, pronounced \kʁe\. 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 47498, this pair ranks #186,485 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Cré vs créent

Shared letters: cré. Private to "Cré": -. Private to "créent": ent.

"Cré" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "créent" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Cré" for "créent" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Cré" is a name and "créent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Cré" vs "créent" - which ranks higher?
"créent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,295 in our French list, against #40,203 for "Cré". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "Cré" / "créent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Cré" 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 #186,485 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cré" and "créent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs Cré". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #186,485 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