Which to use
“criée” is a noun and “cruel” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,260
- “criée” frequency rank
- #8,524
- “cruel” frequency rank
- 45784
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | criée | cruel |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Proclamation pour annoncer la vente des biens en justice. | Qui inflige la souffrance ou la mort ; qui a un caractère de cruauté, en parlant des hommes, des animaux ou des choses. |
Where the eye mixes criée and cruel
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: criée is \kʁi.je\ while cruel is \kʁy.ɛl\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45784, 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\. cruel is at rank #8,524, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁy.ɛl\.
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 45784, this pair ranks #200,073 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of criée vs cruel
Shared letters: cer. Private to "criée": ié. Private to "cruel": lu.
"criée" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV · "cruel" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- cruel ← ccruel · creul · crruel · cruell · crule · curel · rcuel