cracvskrachConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#42,255
“crac” frequency rank
#35,116
“krach” frequency rank
77371
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crac krach
Definition Exprime le bruit que font certains corps, durs, secs et solides, soit en se frottant violemment, soit en éclatant. Désastre boursier, chute soudaine de la bourse.

Same sound, different letters: crac vs krach

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. crac runs 4 letters (CCVC) against krach's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
crac
5 ch
krach

Same sound, different spelling - crac / krach

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: crac and krach 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77371, 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\. krach is at rank #35,116, 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 77371, this pair ranks #28,557 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of crac vs krach

Shared letters: acr. Private to "crac": -. Private to "krach": hk.

"crac" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "krach" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crac ← carc · ccrac · cracc · crca · crrac · rcac
  • krach ← karch · kkrach · kracch · krachh · krahc · krcah · krrach · rkach

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crac" and "krach" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "crac" is an onomatopoeia and "krach" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "crac" or "krach"?
"krach" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,116 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

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crac" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "krach" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,557 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crac" and "krach" 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 #28,557 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