cruvscrushWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,193
“cru” frequency rank
#5,409
“crush” frequency rank
45602
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cru crush
Definition A vineyard or group of vineyards in France, especially one having a high reputation. A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.

Where the eye mixes cru and crush

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

3 ch
cru
5 ch
crush

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. cru (/kɹuː/) and crush (/kɹʌʃ/) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “cru” sits inside “crush”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45602, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cru is recorded at frequency rank #40,193, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɹuː/. crush is at rank #5,409, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɹʌʃ/.

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 45602, this pair ranks #219,695 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cru vs crush

Shared letters: cru. Private to "cru": -. Private to "crush": hs.

"cru" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "crush" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crushccrush · crrush · crsuh · cruhs · crushh · crussh · cursh · rcush

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cru" and "crush" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kɹuː/ versus /kɹʌʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cru" or "crush"?
"crush" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,409 in our English list, against #40,193 for "cru". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list