caravscrauConfusable pair

Quick tell: cara is a verb, crau is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cara” is a verb and “crau” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,560
“cara” frequency rank
#44,959
“crau” frequency rank
66519
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cara crau
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de carer. Plaine semée de pierres et de galets arrondis, couverte d’une steppe propice aux activités pastorales.

Where the eye mixes cara and crau

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cara
4 ch
crau

Look-alike desk: cara vs crau

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cara is \ka.ʁa\ while crau is \kʁo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cara is recorded at frequency rank #21,560, classified as averb, pronounced \ka.ʁa\. crau is at rank #44,959, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁo\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 66519, this pair ranks #67,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cara vs crau

Shared letters: acr. Private to "cara": -. Private to "crau": u.

"cara" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "crau" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • caraacra · caar · carra · ccara · craa
  • craucaru · ccrau · crrau · crua · rcau

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cara" for "crau" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cara" is a verb and "crau" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cara" or "crau"?
"cara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,560 in our French list, against #44,959 for "crau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "cara" and "crau" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #67,477 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cara" and "crau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chah vs crau". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #67,477 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list