cricketvscricketsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,682
“cricket” frequency rank
#22,048
“crickets” frequency rank
25730
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cricket crickets
Definition An insect in the order Orthoptera, especially family Gryllidae, that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wing casings against combs on its hind legs. plural of cricket.

Where the eye mixes cricket and crickets

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. cricket runs 7 letters (CCVCCVC) against crickets's 8 (CCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
cricket
8 ch
crickets

Look-alike desk: cricket vs crickets

A purely visual mix-up. cricket (/ˈkɹɪk.ɪt/) and crickets (/ˈkɹɪk.ɪts/) 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 extra letter(s) - “cricket” sits inside “crickets”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25730, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cricket is recorded at frequency rank #3,682, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹɪk.ɪt/. crickets is at rank #22,048, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹɪk.ɪts/.

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 25730, this pair ranks #392,093 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cricket vs crickets

Shared letters: ceikrt. Private to "cricket": -. Private to "crickets": s.

"cricket" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "crickets" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cricketccricket · circket · crciket · criccket · cricekt · crickett · crickket · crickte
  • cricketsccrickets · circkets · crcikets · cricckets · cricekts · crickest · cricketss · cricketts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cricket" for "crickets" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɹɪk.ɪt/ versus /ˈkɹɪk.ɪts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cricket" or "crickets"?
"cricket" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,682 in our English list, against #22,048 for "crickets". 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 "cricket" and "crickets" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cricket" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crickets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,093 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cricket" and "crickets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "clicker vs cricket". 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 #392,093 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