crossevscrossesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#33,192
“crosse” frequency rank
#8,775
“crosses” frequency rank
41967
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crosse crosses
Definition A lacrosse stick. plural of cross

Letter map: crosse vs crosses

Shared letters muted; letters that set crosse and crosses apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. crosse runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against crosses's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
crosse
7 ch
crosses

Pair insight - crosse / crosses

crosse and crosses are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “crosse” sits inside “crosses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crosse is recorded at frequency rank #33,192, classified as anoun. crosses is at rank #8,775, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹɔsɪz/.

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 41967, this pair ranks #253,535 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crosse vs crosses

Shared letters: ceors. Private to "crosse": -. Private to "crosses": -.

"crosse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "crosses" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crosse ← ccrosse · corsse · crose · crrosse · crsose · rcosse
  • crosses ← ccrosses · corsses · croses · crosess · crossess · crossse · crrosses · crsoses

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crosse" and "crosses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “crosse” sits inside “crosses”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "crosse" vs "crosses" - which ranks higher?
"crosses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,775 in our English list, against #33,192 for "crosse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "crosse" and "crosses".

  • Full dictionary entry for "crosse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crosses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #253,535 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crosse" and "crosses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crone vs crosse". 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 #253,535 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