falsevsfraiseTell them apart

Quick tell: false is a adjective, fraise is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“false” is an adjective and “fraise” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,605
“false” frequency rank
#14,940
“fraise” frequency rank
45545
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature false fraise
Definition Faux. Faux-fruit du fraisier, réceptacle charnu de forme ovoïde oblongue plus ou moins arrondie et de couleur rouge à maturité (les « fruits » véritables au sens botanique sont les akènes qui recouvrent la peau de la fraise).

Where the eye mixes false and fraise

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. false runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against fraise's 6 (CCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
false
6 ch
fraise

Visual trap between false and fraise

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: false is \ˈfɔls\ while fraise is \fʁɛz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 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 45545, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

false is recorded at frequency rank #30,605, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈfɔls\. fraise is at rank #14,940, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁɛz\.

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 45545, this pair ranks #201,927 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of false vs fraise

Shared letters: aefs. Private to "false": l. Private to "fraise": ir.

"false" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "fraise" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • false ← aflse · fales · fallse · falsse · fasle · ffalse · flase
  • fraise ← farise · ffraise · fraies · frasie · friase · frraise · rfaise

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "false" for "fraise" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "false" is an adjective and "fraise" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "false" vs "fraise" - which ranks higher?
"fraise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,940 in our French list, against #30,605 for "false". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "false" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fraise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #201,927 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "false" and "fraise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "false vs fange". 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 #201,927 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