écriavseraWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#44,272
“écria” frequency rank
#22,849
“era” frequency rank
67121
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écria era
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de écrier. Ère.

Where the eye mixes écria and era

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

5 ch
écria
3 ch
era

Visual trap between écria and era

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: écria is \e.kʁi.ja\ while era is \ˈɛɹ.ə\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67121, 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\. era is at rank #22,849, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈɛɹ.ə\.

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 67121, this pair ranks #64,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of écria vs era

Shared letters: ar. Private to "écria": cié. Private to "era": e.

"écria" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV  ·  "era" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "écria" for "era" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "écria" is a verb and "era" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "écria" or "era"?
"era" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,849 in our French list, against #44,272 for "écria". 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 "écria" and "era" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "écria" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "era" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "écria" and "era" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "écria vs écrie". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #64,800 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