cropvscupConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#5,591
“crop” frequency rank
#805
“cup” frequency rank
6396
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crop cup
Definition A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose. A concave vessel for drinking, usually made of opaque material (as opposed to a glass) and with a handle.

Where the eye mixes crop and cup

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
crop
3 ch
cup

Look-alike desk: crop vs cup

A purely visual mix-up. crop (/kɹɒp/) and cup (/kʌp/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6396, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crop is recorded at frequency rank #5,591, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹɒp/. cup is at rank #805, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kʌp/.

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 6396, this pair ranks #511,593 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of crop vs cup

Shared letters: cp. Private to "crop": or. Private to "cup": u.

"crop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cup" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cropccrop · corp · cropp · crpo · crrop · rcop

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crop" for "cup" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kɹɒp/ versus /kʌp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "crop" or "cup" show up more?
"cup" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #805 in our English list, against #5,591 for "crop". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crop" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cup" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #511,593 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crop" and "cup" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Croat vs crop". 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 #511,593 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