crumb
/kɹʌm/
"crumb" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crumb” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #29,984. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #29,984
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A small piece which breaks off from baked food (such as cake, biscuit or bread).
Corpus desk
Index EN-crumb · crumb · English
crumb · rank #29,984 · 8 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #29,984
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH cote
Nearest frequency peer: cote (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “crumb”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Corinth
Corinth
70,020 corpus weight
- cote
cote
70,018 corpus weight
- crumb
crumb
70,017 corpus weight
- CTR
CTR
70,016 corpus weight
- dames
dames
70,013 corpus weight
- darkly
darkly
70,012 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “crumb” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crumb |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɹʌm/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #29,984 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “crumb” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around crumb (IPA /kɹʌm/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #29,984 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 8 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for crumb, with forms such as "ccrumb", "crmub", and "crrumb". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cum", "Cub", "Cruz", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English crome, cromme, crumme, crume, from Old English cruma (“crumb, fragment”), from Proto-Germanic *krumô, *krūmô (“fragment, crumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *grū-mo- (“something scraped together, lumber, junk; to claw, scratch”), from *ger… The correct English form is crumb, spelled C-R-U-M-B.
Definition
- 1A small piece which breaks off from baked food (such as cake, biscuit or bread).
- 2A small piece of any other solid substance.
- 3A bit, small amount.
- 4Ellipsis of crumb rubber.
- 5The soft internal portion of bread, surrounded by crust.
- 6A mixture of sugar, cocoa and milk, used to make industrial chocolate.
- 7A nobody; a worthless person.
- 8A body louse (Pediculus humanus).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how crumb appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The pigeons were happily pecking at crumbs of bread on the ground.
desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table
Etymology
From Middle English crome, cromme, crumme, crume, from Old English cruma (“crumb, fragment”), from Proto-Germanic *krumô, *krūmô (“fragment, crumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *grū-mo- (“something scraped together, lumber, junk; to claw, scratch”), from *ger- (“to turn, bend, twist, wind”). The b is unetymological, as in limb, appearing in the mid-15th century to match crumble and words like dumb, numb, thumb. Cognate with Dutch kruim (“crumb”), Low German Krome, Krume (“crumb”), German Krume (“crumb”), Danish krumme (“crumb”), Swedish dialectal krumma (“crumb”), Swedish inkråm (“crumbs, giblets”), Icelandic krumur (“crumb”), Latin grūmus (“a little heap”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ccrumb
- crmub
- crrumb
- crubm
- crumbb
- crummb
- curmb
- rcumb
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of crumb - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "crumb", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "crumb". Here's where to go from here.
- "crumb" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "cum". View pair
- 8 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #29,984 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "C" letter cohort. C–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.