cozyvscronyWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cozy is a adjective, crony is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cozy” is an adjective and “crony” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,217
“cozy” frequency rank
#40,192
“crony” frequency rank
52409
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cozy crony
Definition Alternative spelling of cosy. A close friend.

Letter map: cozy vs crony

Shared letters muted; letters that set cozy and crony apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. cozy runs 4 letters (CVCV) against crony's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
cozy
5 ch
crony

Grammar separator: cozy vs crony

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cozy is anadjective and cronyanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52409, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cozy is recorded at frequency rank #12,217, classified as anadj. crony is at rank #40,192, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹoʊni/.

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 52409, this pair ranks #157,286 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cozy vs crony

Shared letters: coy. Private to "cozy": z. Private to "crony": nr.

"cozy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "crony" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cozyccozy · coyz · cozyy · cozzy · czoy · oczy
  • cronyccrony · crnoy · cronny · cronyy · croyn · crrony · rcony

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cozy" for "crony" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cozy" is an adjective and "crony" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cozy" vs "crony" - which ranks higher?
"cozy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,217 in our English list, against #40,192 for "crony". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "cozy" and "crony".

  • Full dictionary entry for "cozy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crony" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,286 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cozy" and "crony" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Croat vs crony". 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 #157,286 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list