crust

/kɹʌst/noun, verb

crust is spelled C-R-U-S-T: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 5.0 times per million words in written English, the 11,198th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, crust means “A more solid, dense or hard layer on a surface or boundary” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of crust is crusts.

How many letters and syllables are in crust?

Letters	5: C-R-U-S-T
Syllables	1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing	5.0 times per million words; the 11,198th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is crust?

Crust appears 5.0 times per million words in written English, the 11,198th most frequent word form in the list.

crust0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce crust?

/kɹʌst/
/kɹʊst/

Crust has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-crust.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of crust

crusts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
crusting participle, present
crusted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does crust mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

1
A more solid, dense or hard layer on a surface or boundary.
2
The external, hardened layer of certain foodstuffs, including most types of bread, fried meat, etc.
3
An outer layer composed of pastry
4
The bread-like base of a pizza.
5
AustraliaCanadaIrelandUKA slice of bread cut from the end of a loaf; the heel.
6
The outermost layer of the lithosphere of the Earth.
Holonyms: lithosphere < Earth
7
The outermost layer of the lithosphere of any terrestrial planet.
Holonyms: lithosphere < planet
8
The shell of crabs, lobsters, etc.

verb

1
To cover with a crust.
2
To form a crust.
, The Goblin Reign Boxed Set Thistle held her hand over the wound and pressed a wad of tree moss against it. "Don't move," she said. "Let it crust."

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Crust in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	croûte (any solid, hard surface layer), écorce (outermost layer of a planet)
German	Kruste (any solid, hard surface layer)
Portuguese	crosta (any solid, hard surface layer), massa (bread foundation of pizza)
Spanish	costra (any solid, hard surface layer), pan, corteza (bread foundation of pizza), repulgue, repulgo (outer layer composed of pastry)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.