croftvscronyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#23,227
“croft” frequency rank
#40,192
“crony” frequency rank
63419
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature croft crony
Definition An enclosed piece of land, usually small and arable and used for small-scale food production, and often with a dwelling next to it; in particular, such a piece of land rented to a farmer (a crofter), especially in Scotland, together with a right to use separate pastureland shared by other crofters. A close friend.

Where the eye mixes croft and crony

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
croft
5 ch
crony

Look-alike desk: croft vs crony

A purely visual mix-up. croft (/kɹɔf/) and crony (/ˈkɹoʊni/) 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 63419, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

croft is recorded at frequency rank #23,227, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹɔf/. crony is at rank #40,192, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹoʊni/.

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 63419, this pair ranks #83,093 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of croft vs crony

Shared letters: cor. Private to "croft": ft. Private to "crony": ny.

"croft" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "crony" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • croftccroft · corft · crfot · crofft · croftt · crotf · crroft · rcoft
  • cronyccrony · crnoy · cronny · cronyy · croyn · crrony · rcony

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "croft" and "crony" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/kɹɔf/ versus /ˈkɹoʊni/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "croft" or "crony"?
"croft" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,227 in our English list, against #40,192 for "crony". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "croft" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crony" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #83,093 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "croft" and "crony" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Croat vs crony". 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 #83,093 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