croak
/kɹoʊk/
"croak" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“croak” is an uncommon English word, ranked #59,307 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #59,307
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A faint, harsh sound made in the throat.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | croak |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɹoʊk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #59,307 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “croak” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for croak is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɹoʊk/. Corpus data places it at rank #59,307 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Zero misspellings are on record for croak in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English *croken, crouken, (also represented by craken > crake), back-formation from Old English crācettan (“to croak”) (also in derivative crǣcetung (“croaking”)), from Proto-Germanic *krēk-, from Proto-Indo-European *greh₂-g-, from *greh₂-k-, o… The correct English form is croak, spelled C-R-O-A-K.
Definition
- 1A faint, harsh sound made in the throat.
- 2The call of a frog or toad.
- 3The harsh call of various birds, such as the raven or corncrake, or other creatures.
Etymology
From Middle English *croken, crouken, (also represented by craken > crake), back-formation from Old English crācettan (“to croak”) (also in derivative crǣcetung (“croaking”)), from Proto-Germanic *krēk-, from Proto-Indo-European *greh₂-g-, from *greh₂-k-, of onomatopoeic origin. See also Swedish kråka, German krächzen, Sanskrit गर्जति (garjati, “to growl”); also compare Latin grāculus (“jackdaw”), Serbo-Croatian grákati. More at crack, crake and craic.
This word in other languages
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “croak”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-R-O-A-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kɹoʊk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.