cron
"cron" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cron” is uncommon English (frequency #53,472 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,472
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A scheduler or timer that automatically starts a job, program, task.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cron · cron · English
cron · rank #53,472 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #53,472
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cress
Nearest frequency peer: cress (-1 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 “cron”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- coves
coves
46,533 corpus weight
- crazily
crazily
46,532 corpus weight
- creationist
creationist
46,531 corpus weight
- cress
cress
46,530 corpus weight
- cron
cron
46,529 corpus weight
- CSIS
CSIS
46,526 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “cron” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cron |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #53,472 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “cron” in English
Rare enough to double-check
cron is uncommon English at frequency #53,472 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A scheduler or timer that automatically starts a job, program, task.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for cron, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From chrono-, from Ancient Greek χρόνος (khrónos, “time”). Originating as the name of a specific program, but since generalized to analogous ones. The correct English form is cron, spelled C-R-O-N.
Definition
- 1A scheduler or timer that automatically starts a job, program, task.
Etymology
From chrono-, from Ancient Greek χρόνος (khrónos, “time”). Originating as the name of a specific program, but since generalized to analogous ones.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cron", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).