cragvscrapWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“crag” and “crap” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,715
“crag” frequency rank
#3,613
“crap” frequency rank
48328
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crag crap
Definition A rocky outcrop; a rugged steep cliff or rock. The husk of grain; chaff.

Where the eye mixes crag and crap

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. crag and crap follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
crag
4 ch
crap

Why the eye confuses crag with crap

A purely visual mix-up. crag (/kɹæɡ/) and crap (/kɹæp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - g in “crag” becomes p in “crap”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48328, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crag is recorded at frequency rank #44,715, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹæɡ/. crap is at rank #3,613, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹæp/.

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 48328, this pair ranks #194,103 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crag vs crap

Shared letters: acr. Private to "crag": g. Private to "crap": p.

"crag" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "crap" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cragccrag · cragg · crga · crrag · rcag
  • crapccrap · crapp · crpa · crrap · rcap

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crag" and "crap" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/kɹæɡ/ versus /kɹæp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "crag" or "crap" show up more?
"crap" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,613 in our English list, against #44,715 for "crag". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crag" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crap" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,103 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crag" and "crap" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crag vs Croat". 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 #194,103 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