crake
/ˈkɹeɪk/
"crake" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crake” is uncommon English (frequency #99,135 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #99,135
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.
Corpus desk
Index EN-crake · crake · English
crake · rank #99,135 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #99,135
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH crabapple
Nearest frequency peer: crabapple (-3 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “crake”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- counterargu…
counterargument
872 corpus weight
- crabapple
crabapple
869 corpus weight
- crake
crake
866 corpus weight
- Cristi
Cristi
863 corpus weight
- cruciferous
cruciferous
862 corpus weight
- crustacea
crustacea
861 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “crake” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crake |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkɹeɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #99,135 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “crake” in English
Rare enough to double-check
crake is uncommon English at frequency #99,135 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈkɹeɪk/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.".
crake has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English crak, crake, from Old Norse kráka (“crow”), from Proto-Germanic *krak-, *kra- (“to croak, caw”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂-, itself onomatopoeic. The correct English form is crake, spelled C-R-A-K-E.
Definition
- 1Any of several birds of the family Rallidae that have short bills.
Etymology
From Middle English crak, crake, from Old Norse kráka (“crow”), from Proto-Germanic *krak-, *kra- (“to croak, caw”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂-, itself onomatopoeic.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "crake", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).