clanvscranTell them apart

Which to use

“clan” and “cran” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#4,412
“clan” frequency rank
#10,304
“cran” frequency rank
14716
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clan cran
Definition Chez les Celtes, tribu formée d’un certain nombre de familles. Entaille qu’on fait à un corps dur pour accrocher ou arrêter quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes clan and cran

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

4 ch
clan
4 ch
cran

Look-alike desk: clan vs cran

A purely visual mix-up. clan (\klɑ̃\) and cran (\kʁɑ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - l in “clan” becomes r in “cran”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14716, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clan is recorded at frequency rank #4,412, classified as anoun, pronounced \klɑ̃\. cran is at rank #10,304, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɑ̃\.

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 14716, this pair ranks #395,504 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of clan vs cran

Shared letters: acn. Private to "clan": l. Private to "cran": r.

"clan" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clancaln · cclan · clann · cllan · clna · lcan
  • crancarn · ccran · crann · crna · crran · rcan

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "clan" and "cran" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\klɑ̃\ versus \kʁɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "clan" or "cran"?
"clan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,412 in our French list, against #10,304 for "cran". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "clan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cran" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,504 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clan" and "cran" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coon vs cran". 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 #395,504 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