cracvscraqueWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: crac is a onomatopoeia, craque is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“crac” is an onomatopoeia and “craque” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,255
“crac” frequency rank
#14,897
“craque” frequency rank
57152
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crac craque
Definition Exprime le bruit que font certains corps, durs, secs et solides, soit en se frottant violemment, soit en éclatant. Mensonge.

Same sound, different letters: crac vs craque

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch
crac
6 ch
craque

Ear matches; page differs - crac and craque

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: crac and craque carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kʁak\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anonomatopoeia, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57152, 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\. craque is at rank #14,897, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁak\.

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 57152, this pair ranks #116,728 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crac vs craque

Shared letters: acr. Private to "crac": -. Private to "craque": equ.

"crac" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "craque" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craccarc · ccrac · cracc · crca · crrac · rcac
  • craquecarque · ccraque · craqeu · craqque · crauqe · crqaue · crraque · rcaque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crac" for "craque" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "crac" is an onomatopoeia and "craque" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "crac" or "craque"?
"craque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,897 in our French list, against #42,255 for "crac". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "crac" / "craque". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crac" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "craque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #116,728 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crac" and "craque" 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 #116,728 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