creasesvscruisesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#41,066
“creases” frequency rank
#16,675
“cruises” frequency rank
57741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature creases cruises
Definition plural of crease plural of cruise

Where the eye mixes creases and cruises

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. creases and cruises follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
creases
7 ch
cruises

Why the eye confuses creases with cruises

A purely visual mix-up. creases (/ˈkɹiːsɪz/) and cruises (/ˈkɹuːzɪz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

creases is recorded at frequency rank #41,066, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹiːsɪz/. cruises is at rank #16,675, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹuːzɪz/.

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 57741, this pair ranks #117,323 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of creases vs cruises

Shared letters: cers. Private to "creases": a. Private to "cruises": iu.

"creases" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC  ·  "cruises" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • creasesccreases · cerases · craeses · creaess · creasess · creasses · cresaes · crreases
  • cruisesccruises · criuses · crruises · cruiess · cruisess · cruisses · crusies · curises

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "creases" and "cruises" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɹiːsɪz/ versus /ˈkɹuːzɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "creases" or "cruises"?
"cruises" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,675 in our English list, against #41,066 for "creases". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "creases" and "cruises" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "creases" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cruises" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #117,323 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "creases" and "cruises" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "caresses vs creases". 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 #117,323 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