crashedvscravedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,670
“crashed” frequency rank
#32,749
“craved” frequency rank
39419
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crashed craved
Definition simple past and past participle of crash simple past and past participle of crave

Where the eye mixes crashed and craved

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
crashed
6 ch
craved

Why the eye confuses crashed with craved

A purely visual mix-up. crashed (/kɹæʃt/) and craved (/kɹeɪvd/) 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 39419, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crashed is recorded at frequency rank #6,670, classified as averb, pronounced /kɹæʃt/. craved is at rank #32,749, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɹeɪvd/.

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 39419, this pair ranks #276,890 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crashed vs craved

Shared letters: acder. Private to "crashed": hs. Private to "craved": v.

"crashed" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "craved" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crashedcarshed · ccrashed · crahsed · crasehd · crashde · crashedd · crashhed · crasshed
  • cravedccraved · craevd · cravde · cravedd · cravved · crraved · crvaed · rcaved

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crashed" and "craved" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/kɹæʃt/ versus /kɹeɪvd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "crashed" or "craved" show up more?
"crashed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,670 in our English list, against #32,749 for "craved". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crashed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "craved" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #276,890 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crashed" and "craved" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "craved vs crewed". 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 #276,890 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