crossvscrowWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#9,698
“cross” frequency rank
#36,863
“crow” frequency rank
46561
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cross crow
Definition diagonal in das gegnerische Feld Vogel; Krähe

Letter map: cross vs crow

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

5 ch
cross
4 ch
crow

Part-of-speech tell for cross / crow

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cross is anadverb and crowanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cross is recorded at frequency rank #9,698, classified as anadv, pronounced [kʁɔs]. crow is at rank #36,863, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 46561, this pair ranks #1,314,839 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cross vs crow

Shared letters: cor. Private to "cross": s. Private to "crow": w.

"cross" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "crow" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crossccross · corss · cros · croß · crross · crsos · rcoss
  • crowccrow · corw · croww · crrow · crwo · rcow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cross" for "crow" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cross" is an adverb and "crow" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cross" or "crow"?
"cross" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,698 in our German list, against #36,863 for "crow". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cross" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,314,839 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cross" and "crow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crow 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 #1,314,839 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