écriavsécrireWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#44,272
“écria” frequency rank
#1,154
“écrire” frequency rank
45426
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écria écrire
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de écrier. Créer une représentation de mots à l’aide de lettres et de symboles, par le biais d’un média.

Where the eye mixes écria and écrire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
écria
6 ch
écrire

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. écria (\e.kʁi.ja\) and écrire (\e.kʁiʁ\) 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 45426, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écria is recorded at frequency rank #44,272, classified as averb, pronounced \e.kʁi.ja\. écrire is at rank #1,154, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.kʁiʁ\.

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 45426, this pair ranks #202,796 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of écria vs écrire

Shared letters: ciré. Private to "écria": a. Private to "écrire": e.

"écria" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV  ·  "écrire" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "écria" and "écrire" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\e.kʁi.ja\ versus \e.kʁiʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "écria" or "écrire"?
"écrire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,154 in our French list, against #44,272 for "écria". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list