crawl

\kʁɔl\

/\kʁɔl\/ noun

The verdict

“crawl” is uncommon French (frequency #53,235 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#53,235
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nage en position ventrale associant des battements de jambes dans le sens vertical et des mouvements de bras circulaires, verticaux et alternés dans le sens de la nage.

Corpus desk

Index FR-crawl · crawl · French

crawl · rank #53,235 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #53,235
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH CPP

Nearest frequency peer: CPP (-1 rank slots)

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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « crawl »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « crawl » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for crawl
PropertyValue
Headwordcrawl
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kʁɔl\
Letters5
Frequency rank#53,235
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « crawl » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.crawltombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « CPP » (#53,234), « cric » (#53,236), « Coudray » (#53,233). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « crawl » est au #53,235. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

crawl is uncommon French at frequency #53,235 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kʁɔl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for crawl, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, 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 is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is crawl, spelled C-R-A-W-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nage en position ventrale associant des battements de jambes dans le sens vertical et des mouvements de bras circulaires, verticaux et alternés dans le sens de la nage.
  2. 2
    Message ou générique défilant verticalement ou horizontalement sur fond neutre ou en superposition d’images statiques ou animées.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how crawl appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. L’instructeur américain, M. Griser, a obtenu là des résultats absolument remarquables qui démontrent, une fois de plus, la facilité avec laquelle on peut enseigner le crawl américain aux débutants qui n’ont jamais pratiqué de nages désuètes comme la brasse ou le trudgeon.
  2. Didier, as-tu été à la piscine avec ces dames pour leur montrer ton crawl impeccable ?

Synonyms

This word in other languages

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "crawl"?
"crawl" is spelled C-R-A-W-L. The IPA pronunciation is \kʁɔl\.
What does "crawl" mean?
As a noun, "crawl" means: Nage en position ventrale associant des battements de jambes dans le sens vertical et des mouvements de bras circulaires, verticaux et alternés dans le sens de la nage.
How do you pronounce "crawl"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "crawl" is \kʁɔl\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "crawl" come from?
"crawl" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "crawl", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list