crânevscraqueWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,659
“crâne” frequency rank
#14,897
“craque” frequency rank
19556
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crâne craque
Definition Assemblage des os de la tête, partie du squelette destinée à protéger l’encéphale. Mensonge.

Where the eye mixes crâne and craque

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
crâne
6 ch
craque

Look-alike desk: crâne vs craque

A purely visual mix-up. crâne (\kʁɑn\) and craque (\kʁak\) 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 19556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crâne is recorded at frequency rank #4,659, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁɑn\. 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 19556, this pair ranks #372,678 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of crâne vs craque

Shared letters: cer. Private to "crâne": . Private to "craque": aqu.

"crâne" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "craque" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craquecarque · ccraque · craqeu · craqque · crauqe · crqaue · crraque · rcaque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crâne" for "craque" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kʁɑn\ versus \kʁak\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crâne" or "craque"?
"crâne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,659 in our French list, against #14,897 for "craque". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "crâne" 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 #372,678 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crâne" and "craque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "claquée vs craque". 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 #372,678 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