crisesvscrisisConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#5,854
“crises” frequency rank
#36,787
“crisis” frequency rank
42641
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crises crisis
Definition Pluriel de crise. Crise.

Where the eye mixes crises and crisis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. crises and crisis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
crises
6 ch
crisis

Why the eye confuses crises with crisis

A purely visual mix-up. crises (\kʁiz\) and crisis (\ˈkɹaɪ.sɪs\) 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 - e in “crises” becomes i in “crisis”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42641, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crises is recorded at frequency rank #5,854, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁiz\. crisis is at rank #36,787, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɹaɪ.sɪs\.

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 42641, this pair ranks #224,079 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crises vs crisis

Shared letters: cirs. Private to "crises": e. Private to "crisis": -.

"crises" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "crisis" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crises ← ccrises · cirses · criess · crisess · crisses · crrises · crsies · rcises
  • crisis ← ccrisis · cirsis · criiss · crisiss · crissi · crissis · crrisis · crsiis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crises" for "crisis" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kʁiz\ versus \ˈkɹaɪ.sɪs\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crises" or "crisis"?
"crises" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,854 in our French list, against #36,787 for "crisis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "crises" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crisis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #224,079 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crises" and "crisis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crisis vs criss". 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 #224,079 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