cornvscruTell them apart

Quick tell: corn is a noun, cru is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“corn” is a noun and “cru” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,103
“corn” frequency rank
#1,326
“cru” frequency rank
17429
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature corn cru
Definition Corne. Qui n’est pas cuit.

Letter map: corn vs cru

Shared letters muted; letters that set corn and cru apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
corn
3 ch
cru

Role in the sentence - corn and cru

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: corn is anoun and cruanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17429, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

corn is recorded at frequency rank #16,103, classified as anoun. cru is at rank #1,326, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁy\.

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 17429, this pair ranks #383,211 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of corn vs cru

Shared letters: cr. Private to "corn": no. Private to "cru": u.

"corn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cru" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cornccorn · conr · cornn · corrn · cron · ocrn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "corn" for "cru" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "corn" is a noun and "cru" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "corn" vs "cru" - which ranks higher?
"cru" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,326 in our French list, against #16,103 for "corn". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "corn" and "cru".

  • Full dictionary entry for "corn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cru" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #383,211 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "corn" and "cru" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs corn". 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 #383,211 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