écolevsécrieWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: école is a noun, écrie is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“école” is a noun and “écrie” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#421
“école” frequency rank
#43,224
“écrie” frequency rank
43645
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature école écrie
Definition Lieu dédié à l’apprentissage. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de écrier.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set école and écrie apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
école
5 ch
écrie

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: école is \e.kɔl\ while écrie is \e.kʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43645, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

école is recorded at frequency rank #421, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kɔl\. écrie is at rank #43,224, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.kʁi\.

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 43645, this pair ranks #216,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of école vs écrie

Shared letters: ceé. Private to "école": lo. Private to "écrie": ir.

"école" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "écrie" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV

Frequency comparison

école#421
écrie#43,224

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "école" and "écrie" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "école" is a noun and "écrie" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "école" or "écrie"?
"école" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #421 in our French list, against #43,224 for "écrie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering école vs écrie

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “école”; for a verb, it's “écrie”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “école” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list