Which to use
“crashed” and “crushed” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,670
- “crashed” frequency rank
- #6,777
- “crushed” frequency rank
- 13447
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | crashed | crushed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of crash | simple past and past participle of crush |
Where the eye mixes crashed and crushed
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses crashed with crushed
A purely visual mix-up. crashed (/kɹæʃt/) and crushed (/kɹʌʃt/) 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 - a in “crashed” becomes u in “crushed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13447, 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/. crushed is at rank #6,777, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɹʌʃt/.
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 13447, this pair ranks #475,756 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of crashed vs crushed
Shared letters: cdehrs. Private to "crashed": a. Private to "crushed": u.
"crashed" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC · "crushed" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "crashed" and "crushed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "crashed" or "crushed" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "crashed" and "crushed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "crashed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "crushed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #475,756 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "crashed" and "crushed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crushed vs crusted". 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 #475,756 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.