crushervscrushesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#25,025
“crusher” frequency rank
#23,796
“crushes” frequency rank
48821
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crusher crushes
Definition Someone or something that crushes. plural of crush

Where the eye mixes crusher and crushes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. crusher and crushes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
crusher
7 ch
crushes

Visual trap between crusher and crushes

A purely visual mix-up. crusher (/ˈkɹʌʃə/) and crushes (/ˈkɹʌʃɪz/) 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 - r in “crusher” becomes s in “crushes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48821, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crusher is recorded at frequency rank #25,025, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹʌʃə/. crushes is at rank #23,796, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɹʌʃɪz/.

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 48821, this pair ranks #189,489 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crusher vs crushes

Shared letters: cehrsu. Private to "crusher": -. Private to "crushes": -.

"crusher" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "crushes" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crusherccrusher · crrusher · crsuher · cruhser · crusehr · crusherr · crushher · crushre
  • crushesccrushes · crrushes · crsuhes · cruhses · crusehs · crushess · crushhes · crushse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "crusher" and "crushes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɹʌʃə/ versus /ˈkɹʌʃɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crusher" or "crushes"?
"crushes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,796 in our English list, against #25,025 for "crusher". 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 "crusher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crushes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,489 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crusher" and "crushes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crusher vs crusted". 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 #189,489 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