nécrosevsneuroneWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#43,036
“nécrose” frequency rank
#41,925
“neurone” frequency rank
84961
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nécrose neurone
Definition Mortification ; altération, dégénérescence de cellules, de tissus qui aboutit à leur mort. Type de cellule différenciée composant, avec les cellules gliales, le tissu nerveux. Ces cellules sont excitables et excitatrices, et elles conduisent l’influx nerveux. Le neurone possède un axone et des dendrites.

Where the eye mixes nécrose and neurone

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. nécrose (CVCCVCV) and neurone (CVVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
nécrose
7 ch
neurone

Why the eye confuses nécrose with neurone

A purely visual mix-up. nécrose (\ne.kʁoz\) and neurone (\nø.ʁɔn\) 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 84961, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nécrose is recorded at frequency rank #43,036, classified as anoun, pronounced \ne.kʁoz\. neurone is at rank #41,925, tagged as anoun, pronounced \nø.ʁɔn\.

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 84961, this pair ranks #12,106 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of nécrose vs neurone

Shared letters: enor. Private to "nécrose": csé. Private to "neurone": u.

"nécrose" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "neurone" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • neurone ← enurone · neruone · neuorne · neurnoe · neuroen · neuronne · neurrone · nneurone

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "nécrose" for "neurone" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ne.kʁoz\ versus \nø.ʁɔn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "nécrose" or "neurone" show up more?
"neurone" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,925 in our French list, against #43,036 for "nécrose". 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 "nécrose" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "neurone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #12,106 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nécrose" and "neurone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nécrose vs négros". 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 #12,106 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