convscrowWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,056
“con” frequency rank
#34,485
“crow” frequency rank
35541
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature con crow
Definition Sexe de la femme. Corneille.

Where the eye mixes con and crow

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

3 ch
con
4 ch
crow

Look-alike desk: con vs crow

A purely visual mix-up. con (\kɔ̃\) and crow (\kɹəʊ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

con is recorded at frequency rank #1,056, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃\. crow is at rank #34,485, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɹəʊ\.

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 35541, this pair ranks #275,991 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of con vs crow

Shared letters: co. Private to "con": n. Private to "crow": rw.

"con" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "crow" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crowccrow · corw · croww · crrow · crwo · rcow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "con" for "crow" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ̃\ versus \kɹəʊ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "con" or "crow"?
"con" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,056 in our French list, against #34,485 for "crow". 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 "con" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #275,991 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "con" and "crow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs crow". 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 #275,991 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