Which to use
“crac” is an onomatopoeia and “crans” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,255
- “crac” frequency rank
- #41,202
- “crans” frequency rank
- 83457
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | crac | crans |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Exprime le bruit que font certains corps, durs, secs et solides, soit en se frottant violemment, soit en éclatant. | Pluriel de cran. |
Where the eye mixes crac and crans
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. crac runs 4 letters (CCVC) against crans's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: crac vs crans
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: crac is \kʁak\ while crans is \kʁɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (onomatopoeia vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83457, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
crac is recorded at frequency rank #42,255, classified as anonomatopoeia, pronounced \kʁak\. 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 83457, this pair ranks #14,801 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of crac vs crans
Shared letters: acr. Private to "crac": -. Private to "crans": ns.
"crac" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "crans" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "crac" for "crans" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "crac" or "crans" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "crac" 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 #14,801 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "crac" and "crans" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crac vs croco". 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 #14,801 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.