Which to use
“Cré” is a name and “crête” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #40,203
- “Cré” frequency rank
- #11,944
- “crête” frequency rank
- 52147
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Cré | crête |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ancien nom de la commune française Cré-sur-Loir. | Excroissance charnue que les coqs et quelques autres gallinacés ont sur leur tête. |
Where the eye mixes Cré and crête
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Cré runs 3 letters (CCV) against crête's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: Cré vs crête
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Cré is \kʁe\ while crête is \kʁɛt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52147, 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\. crête is at rank #11,944, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɛt\.
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 52147, this pair ranks #149,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of Cré vs crête
Shared letters: cr. Private to "Cré": é. Private to "crête": etê.
"Cré" · 3 letters · shape CCV · "crête" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "Cré" and "crête" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "Cré" or "crête" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "Cré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "crête" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #149,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Cré" and "crête" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs Cré". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #149,831 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.