frirevsfrisesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#35,956
“frire” frequency rank
#46,777
“frises” frequency rank
82733
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature frire frises
Definition Faire cuire dans une poêle avec du beurre, du saindoux ou de l’huile. Pluriel de frise.

Where the eye mixes frire and frises

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

5 ch
frire
6 ch
frises

Look-alike desk: frire vs frises

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: frire is \fʁiʁ\ while frises is \fʁiz\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82733, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

frire is recorded at frequency rank #35,956, classified as averb, pronounced \fʁiʁ\. frises is at rank #46,777, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁiz\.

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 82733, this pair ranks #16,138 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of frire vs frises

Shared letters: efir. Private to "frire": -. Private to "frises": s.

"frire" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "frises" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • frireffrire · frier · frirre · frrie · frrire · rfire
  • frisesffrises · firses · frisess · frisses · frrises · frsies · rfises

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "frire" and "frises" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "frire" is a verb and "frises" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "frire" or "frises" show up more?
"frire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,956 in our French list, against #46,777 for "frises". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "frire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frises" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,138 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "frire" and "frises" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foies 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 #16,138 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