crush
/kɹʌʃ/
"crush" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crush” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,409 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,409
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.
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 | crush |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɹʌʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,409 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “crush” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for crush is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɹʌʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,409 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 14 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for crush, with forms such as "ccrush", "crrush", and "crsuh". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Cruz", "crux", "cusp", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Late Latin *crusciō (“to crush”), from Frankish *krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic *kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike… The correct English form is crush, spelled C-R-U-S-H.
Definition
- 1A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.
- 2Violent pressure, as of a moving crowd.
- 3A violent crowding.
- 4A crowd that produces uncomfortable pressure.
- 5A group or gang.
- 6A crowd control barrier.
- 7A drink made by squeezing the juice out of fruit.
- 8An infatuation with somebody one is not dating.
- 9An infatuation with somebody one is not dating.
- 10A standing stock or cage with movable sides used to restrain livestock for safe handling.
- 11A party or festive function.
- 12The process of crushing cane to remove the raw sugar, or the season when this process takes place.
- 13The situation where certain colors are so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.
- 14A paraphilia involving arousal from seeing things destroyed by crushing.
Etymology
From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Late Latin *crusciō (“to crush”), from Frankish *krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic *kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike, smash”). Cognate with Middle Low German tôkrosten (“to crush, shatter”), Swedish krysta (“to squeeze”), Danish kryste (“to squash”), Icelandic kreista (“to squeeze, squash”), Faroese kroysta (“to squeeze”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kriustan, “to gnash”). Akin also to Middle Dutch crosen (“to bruise, crush”), Middle Low German krossen, krö̂sen, tôkrö̂sen (“to break, shatter”), Old Swedish krusa (“to crush”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccrush,crrush,crsuh,cruhs,crushh,crussh,cursh,rcush
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of crush - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “crush”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-R-U-S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /kɹʌʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Cruz” - see the side-by-side comparison. crush vs Cruz
- 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.