crab
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "crab", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "crab" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "crab" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
crab is aEnglishnoun. It 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. Pronounced /kɹæb/. Often confused with cry and Cub.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crab |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɹæb/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #10,185 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for crab is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɹæb/. Corpus data places it at rank #10,185 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for crab, with forms such as "ccrab", "crba", and "crrab". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cry", "Cub", "CSA", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“scratch, claw at”), a metathesised o-… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is crab, spelled C-R-A-B, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Any crustacean of the infraorder Brachyura, having five pairs of legs, the foremost of which are in the form of claws, and a carapace.
- 2The meat of this crustacean, served as food; crabmeat.
- 3Various other animals that resemble true crabs:
- 4Various other animals that resemble true crabs:
- 5A bad-tempered person.
- 6An infestation of pubic lice (Pthirus pubis).
- 7Ellipsis of crab angle.
- 8A playing card with the rank of three.
- 9A position in rowing where the oar is pushed under the rigger by the force of the water.
- 10A defect in an outwardly normal object that may render it inconvenient and troublesome to use.
- 11An unsold book that is returned to the publisher.
- 12On an insignia, a coat of arms symbol representing a senior rank.
- 13A member of the Crips.
Etymology
From Middle English crabbe, from Old English crabba (“crab; crayfish; cancer”), from Proto-West Germanic *krabbō, from Proto-Germanic *krabbô, from *krabbōną (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-Indo-European *grobʰeh₂yéti (“scratch, claw at”), a metathesised o-grade of *gerbʰ- (“to carve, scratch”). More at carve. Cognates See also Dutch krab, Low German Krabb, Danish krabbe, Swedish krabba. Further cognates with frequentative-infix are Saterland Frisian krabbelje (“to creep, crawl”), Dutch krabbelen (“to scratch”) and German krabbeln (“to crawl”). Possibly related to English creep and Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”) etc. Other origins have also been suggested, see Ancient Greek κάραβος (kárabos) (regarding the possibility of a substrate origin) and Persian خرچنگ (regarding possible ideophonic origin); compare also Old Armenian քարբ (kʻarb), German Krebs.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccrab,crba,crrab,rcab
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for crab
Misspelling Variants of "crab"
Frequency rank: #10,185 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: