crapvscruWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,613
“crap” frequency rank
#40,193
“cru” frequency rank
43806
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crap cru
Definition The husk of grain; chaff. A vineyard or group of vineyards in France, especially one having a high reputation.

Where the eye mixes crap and cru

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
crap
3 ch
cru

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. crap (/kɹæp/) and cru (/kɹuː/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43806, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crap is recorded at frequency rank #3,613, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹæp/. cru is at rank #40,193, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹuː/.

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 43806, this pair ranks #236,514 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crap vs cru

Shared letters: cr. Private to "crap": ap. Private to "cru": u.

"crap" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cru" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crapccrap · crapp · crpa · crrap · rcap

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "crap" and "cru" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kɹæp/ versus /kɹuː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crap" or "cru"?
"crap" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,613 in our English list, against #40,193 for "cru". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list