CrévscriseTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#40,203
“Cré” frequency rank
#1,109
“crise” frequency rank
41312
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cré crise
Definition Ancien nom de la commune française Cré-sur-Loir. Changement en bien ou en mal qui survient dans le cours d’une maladie et s’annonce par quelques phénomènes particuliers, comme une excrétion abondante, une hémorragie considérable, des sueurs, un dépôt dans les urines, etc.

Where the eye mixes Cré and crise

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Cré runs 3 letters (CCV) against crise's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Cré
5 ch
crise

Why the eye confuses Cré with crise

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Cré is \kʁe\ while crise is \kʁiz\. 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 41312, 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\. crise is at rank #1,109, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁiz\.

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 41312, this pair ranks #234,036 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Cré vs crise

Shared letters: cr. Private to "Cré": é. Private to "crise": eis.

"Cré" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "crise" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crise ← ccrise · cirse · crrise · crsie · rcise

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Cré" and "crise" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Cré" is a name and "crise" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Cré" or "crise"?
"crise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,109 in our French list, against #40,203 for "Cré". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "crise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #234,036 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cré" and "crise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs Cré". 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 #234,036 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