crab
/kɹæb/noun, verb
crab is spelled C-R-A-B: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 5.8 times per million words in written English, the 10,196th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, crab means “Any crustacean of the infraorder Brachyura, having five pairs of legs, the foremost of which are in the form of claws, and a carapace” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of crab is crabs.
How many letters and syllables are in crab?
| Letters | 4: C-R-A-B |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 5.8 times per million words; the 10,196th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is crab?
Crab appears 5.8 times per million words in written English, the 10,196th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce crab?
- US /kɹæb/
- British /ˈkɹab/
- /ˈkɾab/
Crab has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-crab.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with crab?
5 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as crab from its last stressed vowel (/æb/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: carb.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of crab
- crabs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- crabbing participle, present
- crabbed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does crab mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Any crustacean of the infraorder Brachyura, having five pairs of legs, the foremost of which are in the form of claws, and a carapace.
- 2
The meat of this crustacean, served as food; crabmeat.
- 3
Any of various crustacean in the infraorder Anomura, usually excluding squat lobsters.
Despite its name, the hermit crab is not a true crab!
- 4
A horseshoe crab.
- 5
A bad-tempered person.
- 6
informalAn infestation of pubic lice (Pthirus pubis).
Although crabs themselves are an easily treated inconvenience, the patient and his partner(s) clearly run major STD risks.
- 7
Ellipsis of crab angle.
The pilot had to hold fifteen degrees of crab during the approach to keep her plane from getting blown off the localizer course.
- 8
slangA playing card with the rank of three.
- 9
A crab apple or wild apple.
- 10
A tree bearing crab apples, which has a dogbane-like bitter bark with medical use.
- 11
A cudgel made of the wood of the crab tree; a crabstick.
- 12
A movable winch or windlass with powerful gearing, used with derricks, etc.
- 13
A form of windlass, or geared capstan, for hauling ships into dock, etc.
- 14
A machine used in ropewalks to stretch the yarn.
- 15
A claw for anchoring a portable machine.
- 16
The tree species Carapa guianensis, native to South America.
- 17
informalClipping of carabiner, modified based on likening the shape of a carabiner to a crab's claw.
verb
- 1
To fish for crabs.
- 2
USslangTo ruin.
- 3
To complain.
- 4
To complain about.
- 5
To drift or move sideways or to leeward (by analogy with the movement of a crab).
- 6
To move in a manner that involves keeping low and clinging to surfaces.
- 7
To move (a camera) sideways.
- 8
To navigate (an aircraft, e.g. a glider) sideways against an air current in order to maintain a straight-line course.
- 9
obsoleteTo irritate, make surly or sour
- 10
To be ill-tempered; to complain or find fault.
- 11
BritishTo cudgel or beat, as with a crabstick
- 12
obsoleteTo offend or insult.
If I think one thing and speak another, / I will both crab Christ and our Ladie His mother.
noun
- 1
A unit for measuring the intensity of astrophysical X-ray sources, defined as the intensity of the Crab Nebula at the corresponding X-ray photon energy.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Crab in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | crabe, tourteau , morpions |
| German | Krabbe |
| Portuguese | caranguejo, siri |
| Spanish | cangrejo, jaiba , ladilla, maneto |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does crab come from?
From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to scratch”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“to scratch”), a metathesised o-grade of *gerbʰ- (“to carve, scratch”). More at carve.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).