crue
"crue" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crue” is uncommon English (frequency #77,573 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,573
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Obsolete form of crew.
Corpus desk
Index EN-crue · crue · English
crue · rank #77,573 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #77,573
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH criterium
Nearest frequency peer: criterium (-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 “crue”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- creo
creo
22,431 corpus weight
- Crisco
Crisco
22,430 corpus weight
- criterium
criterium
22,429 corpus weight
- crue
crue
22,428 corpus weight
- cyanogen
cyanogen
22,425 corpus weight
- danza
danza
22,424 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “crue” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crue |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #77,573 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “crue” in English
Rare enough to double-check
crue is uncommon English at frequency #77,573 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Obsolete form of crew.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for crue, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is crue, spelled C-R-U-E.
Definition
- 1Obsolete form of crew.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how crue appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…] hee would seeme to make that to be, which is not, and so doth winne to himselfe from simple people that runne after men of that cursed crue […]
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 "crue", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).