CriesvscuvesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#28,505
“Cries” frequency rank
#21,588
“cuves” frequency rank
50093
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cries cuves
Definition Pluriel de Crie. Pluriel de cuve.

Where the eye mixes Cries and cuves

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

5 ch
Cries
5 ch
cuves

Look-alike desk: Cries vs cuves

A purely visual mix-up. Cries (\kʁi\) and cuves (\kyv\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50093, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Cries is recorded at frequency rank #28,505, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁi\. cuves is at rank #21,588, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kyv\.

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 50093, this pair ranks #165,372 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Cries vs cuves

Shared letters: ces. Private to "Cries": ir. Private to "cuves": uv.

"Cries" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "cuves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Criesccries · cires · creis · crries · rcies
  • cuvesccuves · cuevs · cuvess · cuvse · cuvves · cvues · ucves

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Cries" and "cuves" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kʁi\ versus \kyv\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Cries" vs "cuves" - which ranks higher?
"cuves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,588 in our French list, against #28,505 for "Cries". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "Cries" and "cuves" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Cries" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cuves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #165,372 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cries" and "cuves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs Cries". 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 #165,372 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