crewsvscrossTell them apart

Quick tell: crews is a noun, cross is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“crews” is a noun and “cross” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,466
“crews” frequency rank
#9,698
“cross” frequency rank
50164
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crews cross
Definition Plural des Substantivs crew diagonal in das gegnerische Feld

Letter map: crews vs cross

Shared letters muted; letters that set crews and cross apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
crews
5 ch
cross

Role in the sentence - crews and cross

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: crews is anoun and crossanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crews is recorded at frequency rank #40,466, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. cross is at rank #9,698, tagged as anadv, pronounced [kʁɔs].

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 50164, this pair ranks #1,184,189 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crews vs cross

Shared letters: crs. Private to "crews": ew. Private to "cross": o.

"crews" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "cross" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crewsccrews · cerws · cresw · crewss · crewws · crrews · crwes · rcews
  • crossccross · corss · cros · croß · crross · crsos · rcoss

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "crews" and "cross" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "crews" is a noun and "cross" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "crews" or "cross" show up more?
"cross" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,698 in our German list, against #40,466 for "crews". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "crews" and "cross".

  • Full dictionary entry for "crews" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cross" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,184,189 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crews" and "cross" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crews vs puzzles". 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 #1,184,189 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list