Which to use
“CDU” is a name and “crud” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,372
- “CDU” frequency rank
- #45,306
- “crud” frequency rank
- 82678
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | CDU | crud |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Initialism of Christian Democratic Union (of Germany) (“Christlich Demokratische Union”) (a major mainstream German political party) | Dirt, filth or refuse. |
Letter map: CDU vs crud
Shared letters muted; letters that set CDU and crud apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. CDU runs 3 letters (CCV) against crud's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for CDU / crud
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: CDU is aname and crudanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82678, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
CDU is recorded at frequency rank #37,372, classified as aname. crud is at rank #45,306, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹʌd/.
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 82678, this pair ranks #15,275 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of CDU vs crud
Shared letters: cdu. Private to "CDU": -. Private to "crud": r.
"CDU" · 3 letters · shape CCV · "crud" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- crud ← ccrud · crdu · crrud · crudd · rcud
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "CDU" for "crud" ever safe?
Which is more common, "CDU" or "crud"?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "CDU" and "crud".
- Full dictionary entry for "CDU" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "crud" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #15,275 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "CDU" and "crud" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crud vs CVD". 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 #15,275 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.