Which to use
“cruels” is an adjective and “culs” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,534
- “cruels” frequency rank
- #12,545
- “culs” frequency rank
- 37079
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cruels | culs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Masculin pluriel de cruel. | Pluriel de cul. |
Where the eye mixes cruels and culs
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: cruels vs culs
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cruels is \kʁy.ɛl\ while culs is \ky\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37079, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cruels is recorded at frequency rank #24,534, classified as anadj, pronounced \kʁy.ɛl\. culs is at rank #12,545, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ky\.
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 37079, this pair ranks #265,038 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cruels vs culs
Shared letters: clsu. Private to "cruels": er. Private to "culs": -.
"cruels" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC · "culs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cruels" for "culs" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "cruels" or "culs" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "cruels" and "culs" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "cruels" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "culs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #265,038 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cruels" and "culs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "culs vs ky". 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 #265,038 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.