critvscutTell them apart

Which to use

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

#32,770
“crit” frequency rank
#17,668
“cut” frequency rank
50438
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crit cut
Definition Cri. Pointage permettant de se qualifier.

Where the eye mixes crit and cut

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
crit
3 ch
cut

Visual trap between crit and cut

A purely visual mix-up. crit (\ˈkɾit\) and cut (\kœt\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50438, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crit is recorded at frequency rank #32,770, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɾit\. cut is at rank #17,668, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kœt\.

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 50438, this pair ranks #162,635 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crit vs cut

Shared letters: ct. Private to "crit": ir. Private to "cut": u.

"crit" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cut" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • critccrit · cirt · critt · crrit · crti · rcit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crit" for "cut" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈkɾit\ versus \kœt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crit" or "cut"?
"cut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,668 in our French list, against #32,770 for "crit". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #162,635 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crit" and "cut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CIP vs crit". 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 #162,635 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