chatvscraWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: chat is a noun, cra is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“chat” is a noun and “cra” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,433
“chat” frequency rank
#41,201
“cra” frequency rank
42634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chat cra
Definition Mammifère carnivore félin de taille moyenne, au museau court et arrondi, domestiqué, apprivoisé ou encore à l’état sauvage. très

Where the eye mixes chat and cra

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
chat
3 ch
cra

Visual trap between chat and cra

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: chat is \ʃa\ while cra is \kʁa\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chat is recorded at frequency rank #1,433, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃa\. cra is at rank #41,201, tagged as anadv, pronounced \kʁa\.

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 42634, this pair ranks #224,133 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of chat vs cra

Shared letters: ac. Private to "chat": ht. Private to "cra": r.

"chat" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cra" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chatcaht · cchat · chatt · chhat · chta · hcat

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chat" and "cra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "chat" is a noun and "cra" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "chat" or "cra" show up more?
"chat" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,433 in our French list, against #41,201 for "cra". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #224,133 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chat" and "cra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs cra". 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 #224,133 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