CreevscrewedTell them apart

Quick tell: Cree is a name, crewed is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Cree” is a name and “crewed” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,161
“Cree” frequency rank
#49,848
“crewed” frequency rank
78009
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Cree crewed
Definition An aboriginal nation of North America. Having a crew; manned; piloted.

Where the eye mixes Cree and crewed

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Cree
6 ch
crewed

Why the eye confuses Cree with crewed

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Cree is /kɹiː/ while crewed is /kɹuːd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78009, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Cree is recorded at frequency rank #28,161, classified as aname, pronounced /kɹiː/. crewed is at rank #49,848, tagged as anadj, pronounced /kɹuːd/.

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 78009, this pair ranks #25,719 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Cree vs crewed

Shared letters: cer. Private to "Cree": -. Private to "crewed": dw.

"Cree" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "crewed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Creeccree · cere · cre · crree · rcee
  • crewedccrewed · cerwed · creewd · crewde · crewedd · crewwed · crrewed · crweed

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Cree" for "crewed" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Cree" is a name and "crewed" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Cree" or "crewed" show up more?
"Cree" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,161 in our English list, against #49,848 for "crewed". 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 "Cree" and "crewed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Cree" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crewed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,719 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Cree" and "crewed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "creeds 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 #25,719 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