creuséevscreuserWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: creusée is a adjective, creuser is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“creusée” is an adjective and “creuser” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,504
“creusée” frequency rank
#7,676
“creuser” frequency rank
36180
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature creusée creuser
Definition Féminin singulier de creusé. Faire un trou, un orifice, un canal, etc.

Same sound, different letters: creusée vs creuser

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. creusée (CCVVCVV) and creuser (CCVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
creusée
7 ch
creuser

Ear matches; page differs - creusée and creuser

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: creusée and creuser carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kʁø.ze\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36180, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

creusée is recorded at frequency rank #28,504, classified as anadj, pronounced \kʁø.ze\. creuser is at rank #7,676, tagged as averb, pronounced \kʁø.ze\.

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 36180, this pair ranks #271,461 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of creusée vs creuser

Shared letters: cersu. Private to "creusée": é. Private to "creuser": -.

"creusée" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVV  ·  "creuser" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • creuser ← ccreuser · ceruser · cresuer · creuesr · creuserr · creusre · creusser · crreuser

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "creusée" for "creuser" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "creusée" is an adjective and "creuser" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "creusée" vs "creuser" - which ranks higher?
"creuser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,676 in our French list, against #28,504 for "creusée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"creusée" and "creuser" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "creusée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "creuser" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #271,461 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "creusée" and "creuser" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "creusée vs creusot". 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 #271,461 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