crêpevscroieWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: crêpe is a noun, croie is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“crêpe” is a noun and “croie” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,798
“crêpe” frequency rank
#23,159
“croie” frequency rank
42957
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crêpe croie
Definition Étoffe claire, légère et comme frisée, faite de laine fine ou de soie crue et gommée. Première personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de croire.

Where the eye mixes crêpe and croie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
crêpe
5 ch
croie

Why the eye confuses crêpe with croie

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: crêpe is \kʁɛp\ while croie is \kʁwa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42957, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crêpe is recorded at frequency rank #19,798, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁɛp\. croie is at rank #23,159, tagged as averb, pronounced \kʁwa\.

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 42957, this pair ranks #221,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crêpe vs croie

Shared letters: cer. Private to "crêpe": . Private to "croie": io.

"crêpe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "croie" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • croieccroie · corie · crioe · croei · crroie · rcoie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crêpe" for "croie" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "crêpe" is a noun and "croie" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "crêpe" or "croie" show up more?
"crêpe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,798 in our French list, against #23,159 for "croie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "crêpe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "croie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #221,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crêpe" and "croie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "croie vs croirez". 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 #221,677 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