creekvscriqueTell them apart

Quick tell: creek is a adjective, crique is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“creek” is an adjective and “crique” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,797
“creek” frequency rank
#32,361
“crique” frequency rank
52158
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature creek crique
Definition Qui concerne les Creeks. Petite baie, partie du rivage qui forme dans les terres un enfoncement où de petits bateaux peuvent se mettre à l’abri.

Same sound, different letters: creek vs crique

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

5 ch
creek
6 ch
crique

Homophone desk: creek vs crique

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: creek and crique carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kʁik\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52158, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

creek is recorded at frequency rank #19,797, classified as anadj, pronounced \kʁik\. crique is at rank #32,361, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁik\.

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 52158, this pair ranks #149,748 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of creek vs crique

Shared letters: cer. Private to "creek": k. Private to "crique": iqu.

"creek" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "crique" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • creekccreek · cerek · creekk · crek · creke · crreek · rceek
  • criqueccrique · criqeu · criqque · criuqe · crqiue · crrique · rcique

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "creek" for "crique" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "creek" is an adjective and "crique" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "creek" or "crique" show up more?
"creek" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,797 in our French list, against #32,361 for "crique". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "creek" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crique" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #149,748 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "creek" and "crique" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crique vs criquets". 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 #149,748 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