criéevscrimeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#37,260
“criée” frequency rank
#1,907
“crime” frequency rank
39167
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature criée crime
Definition Proclamation pour annoncer la vente des biens en justice. Infraction très grave, à la morale ou à la loi.

Where the eye mixes criée and crime

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
criée
5 ch
crime

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. criée (\kʁi.je\) and crime (\kʁim\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - é in “criée” becomes m in “crime”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

criée is recorded at frequency rank #37,260, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁi.je\. crime is at rank #1,907, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁim\.

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 39167, this pair ranks #249,998 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of criée vs crime

Shared letters: ceir. Private to "criée": é. Private to "crime": m.

"criée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV  ·  "crime" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crimeccrime · cirme · criem · crimme · crmie · crrime · rcime

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "criée" and "crime" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kʁi.je\ versus \kʁim\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "criée" or "crime"?
"crime" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,907 in our French list, against #37,260 for "criée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list