crabesvscubesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#21,585
“crabes” frequency rank
#12,350
“cubes” frequency rank
33935
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crabes cubes
Definition Pluriel de crabe. Pluriel de cube.

Where the eye mixes crabes and cubes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
crabes
5 ch
cubes

Visual trap between crabes and cubes

A purely visual mix-up. crabes (\kʁab\) and cubes (\kyb\) 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 33935, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crabes is recorded at frequency rank #21,585, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁab\. cubes is at rank #12,350, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kyb\.

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 33935, this pair ranks #287,276 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crabes vs cubes

Shared letters: bces. Private to "crabes": ar. Private to "cubes": u.

"crabes" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "cubes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crabescarbes · ccrabes · crabbes · crabess · crabse · craebs · crbaes · crrabes
  • cubescbues · ccubes · cubbes · cubess · cubse · cuebs · ucbes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crabes" for "cubes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kʁab\ versus \kyb\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crabes" or "cubes"?
"cubes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,350 in our French list, against #21,585 for "crabes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "crabes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cubes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #287,276 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crabes" and "cubes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cakes vs crabes". 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 #287,276 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