craintvscrinWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: craint is a verb, crin is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“craint” is a verb and “crin” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,477
“craint” frequency rank
#42,257
“crin” frequency rank
46734
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature craint crin
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de craindre. Poil long et rude qui pousse au cou, à la queue et aux extrémités inférieures des membres de certains animaux et spécialement des chevaux.

Same sound, different letters: craint vs crin

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. craint runs 6 letters (CCVVCC) against crin's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
craint
4 ch
crin

Ear matches; page differs - craint and crin

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: craint and crin carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kʁɛ̃\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, 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 46734, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

craint is recorded at frequency rank #4,477, classified as averb, pronounced \kʁɛ̃\. crin is at rank #42,257, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɛ̃\.

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 46734, this pair ranks #192,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of craint vs crin

Shared letters: cinr. Private to "craint": at. Private to "crin": -.

"craint" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC  ·  "crin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craintcarint · ccraint · crainnt · craintt · craitn · cranit · crraint · rcaint
  • crinccrin · cirn · crinn · crni · crrin · rcin

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "craint" and "crin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "craint" is a verb and "crin" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "craint" or "crin"?
"craint" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,477 in our French list, against #42,257 for "crin". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "craint" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "craint" and "crin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coon vs crin". 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 #192,546 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