clinsvscransWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#29,695
“clins” frequency rank
#41,202
“crans” frequency rank
70897
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clins crans
Definition Pluriel de clin. Pluriel de cran.

Where the eye mixes clins and crans

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. clins and crans follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
clins
5 ch
crans

Visual trap between clins and crans

A purely visual mix-up. clins (\klɛ̃\) and crans (\kʁɑ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70897, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clins is recorded at frequency rank #29,695, classified as anoun, pronounced \klɛ̃\. crans is at rank #41,202, 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 70897, this pair ranks #49,566 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of clins vs crans

Shared letters: cns. Private to "clins": il. Private to "crans": ar.

"clins" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "crans" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • clins ← cclins · cilns · clinns · clinss · clisn · cllins · clnis · lcins
  • crans ← carns · ccrans · cranns · cranss · crasn · crnas · crrans · rcans

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "clins" for "crans" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\klɛ̃\ versus \kʁɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "clins" or "crans"?
"clins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,695 in our French list, against #41,202 for "crans". 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 "clins" and "crans" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crans" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,566 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clins" and "crans" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCAS vs crans". 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 #49,566 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