crabevscranTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,915
“crabe” frequency rank
#10,304
“cran” frequency rank
28219
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crabe cran
Definition Crustacé décapode, à large carapace, dont on mange la chair. Entaille qu’on fait à un corps dur pour accrocher ou arrêter quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes crabe and cran

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

5 ch
crabe
4 ch
cran

Why the eye confuses crabe with cran

A purely visual mix-up. crabe (\kʁab\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28219, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crabe is recorded at frequency rank #17,915, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁab\. 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 28219, this pair ranks #324,186 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crabe vs cran

Shared letters: acr. Private to "crabe": be. Private to "cran": n.

"crabe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "cran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crabecarbe · ccrabe · crabbe · craeb · crbae · crrabe · rcabe
  • crancarn · ccran · crann · crna · crran · rcan

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "crabe" and "cran" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kʁab\ versus \kʁɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "crabe" vs "cran" - which ranks higher?
"cran" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,304 in our French list, against #17,915 for "crabe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crabe" 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 #324,186 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crabe" and "cran" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crabe vs curage". 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 #324,186 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