Which to use
“friche” is a noun and “frire” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #26,735
- “friche” frequency rank
- #35,956
- “frire” frequency rank
- 62691
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | friche | frire |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Terrain inculte, soit qu’on ne l’ait jamais cultivé, soit que la culture en ait été interrompue. | Faire cuire dans une poêle avec du beurre, du saindoux ou de l’huile. |
Where the eye mixes friche and frire
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. friche runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against frire's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses friche with frire
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: friche is \fʁiʃ\ while frire is \fʁiʁ\. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62691, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
friche is recorded at frequency rank #26,735, classified as anoun, pronounced \fʁiʃ\. frire is at rank #35,956, tagged as averb, pronounced \fʁiʁ\.
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 62691, this pair ranks #85,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of friche vs frire
Shared letters: efir. Private to "friche": ch. Private to "frire": -.
"friche" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV · "frire" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "friche" and "frire" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "friche" or "frire"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "friche" and "frire" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "friche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "frire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #85,836 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "friche" and "frire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frire vs frises". 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 #85,836 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.