crownvscrowsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,665
“crown” frequency rank
#15,596
“crows” frequency rank
18261
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crown crows
Definition A royal, imperial or princely headdress; a diadem. plural of crow

Where the eye mixes crown and crows

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

5 ch
crown
5 ch
crows

Why the eye confuses crown with crows

A purely visual mix-up. crown (/kɹaʊn/) and crows (/kɹəʊz/) 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 a single letter - n in “crown” becomes s in “crows”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18261, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crown is recorded at frequency rank #2,665, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹaʊn/. crows is at rank #15,596, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹəʊz/.

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 18261, this pair ranks #446,061 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of crown vs crows

Shared letters: corw. Private to "crown": n. Private to "crows": s.

"crown" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "crows" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crownccrown · corwn · cronw · crownn · crowwn · crrown · crwon · rcown
  • crowsccrows · corws · crosw · crowss · crowws · crrows · crwos · rcows

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "crown" and "crows" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kɹaʊn/ versus /kɹəʊz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crown" or "crows"?
"crown" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,665 in our English list, against #15,596 for "crows". 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 "crown" and "crows" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crown" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crows" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #446,061 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crown" and "crows" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Croat vs crows". 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 #446,061 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