écrirevsécrouéConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#1,154
“écrire” frequency rank
#42,699
“écroué” frequency rank
43853
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écrire écroué
Definition Créer une représentation de mots à l’aide de lettres et de symboles, par le biais d’un média. Participe passé masculin singulier de écrouer.

Where the eye mixes écrire and écroué

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
écrire
6 ch
écroué

Look-alike desk: écrire vs écroué

A purely visual mix-up. écrire (\e.kʁiʁ\) and écroué (\e.kʁu.e\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43853, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écrire is recorded at frequency rank #1,154, classified as averb, pronounced \e.kʁiʁ\. écroué is at rank #42,699, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.kʁu.e\.

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 43853, this pair ranks #214,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of écrire vs écroué

Shared letters: cré. Private to "écrire": ei. Private to "écroué": ou.

"écrire" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "écroué" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "écrire" for "écroué" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.kʁiʁ\ versus \e.kʁu.e\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "écrire" or "écroué"?
"écrire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,154 in our French list, against #42,699 for "écroué". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "écrire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "écroué" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #214,882 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "écrire" and "écroué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "échouée vs écroué". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #214,882 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