créevscuveTell them apart

Which to use

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

#2,272
“crée” frequency rank
#14,006
“cuve” frequency rank
16278
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crée cuve
Definition Sorte de toile. Grand récipient de bois, de métal ou de maçonnerie dont on se sert ordinairement pour fouler la vendange ou pour y laisser fermenter le vin nouveau avec la grappe, pour faire de la bière et pour divers autres usages.

Where the eye mixes crée and cuve

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. crée (CCVV) and cuve (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
crée
4 ch
cuve

Visual trap between crée and cuve

A purely visual mix-up. crée (\kʁe.ə\) and cuve (\kyv\) 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 16278, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crée is recorded at frequency rank #2,272, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁe.ə\. cuve is at rank #14,006, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kyv\.

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 16278, this pair ranks #388,558 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of crée vs cuve

Shared letters: ce. Private to "crée": ré. Private to "cuve": uv.

"crée" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "cuve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cuve ← ccuve · cuev · cuvve · cvue · ucve

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crée" for "cuve" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kʁe.ə\ versus \kyv\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "crée" or "cuve" show up more?
"crée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,272 in our French list, against #14,006 for "cuve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cuve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,558 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crée" and "cuve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cuve". 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 #388,558 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