craquevscrauTell them apart

Which to use

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

#14,897
“craque” frequency rank
#44,959
“crau” frequency rank
59856
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature craque crau
Definition Mensonge. Plaine semée de pierres et de galets arrondis, couverte d’une steppe propice aux activités pastorales.

Where the eye mixes craque and crau

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. craque runs 6 letters (CCVCVV) against crau's 4 (CCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
craque
4 ch
crau

Look-alike desk: craque vs crau

A purely visual mix-up. craque (\kʁak\) and crau (\kʁo\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59856, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

craque is recorded at frequency rank #14,897, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁak\. crau is at rank #44,959, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁo\.

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 59856, this pair ranks #100,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of craque vs crau

Shared letters: acru. Private to "craque": eq. Private to "crau": -.

"craque" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV  ·  "crau" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craque ← carque · ccraque · craqeu · craqque · crauqe · crqaue · crraque · rcaque
  • crau ← caru · ccrau · crrau · crua · rcau

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "craque" and "crau" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kʁak\ versus \kʁo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "craque" or "crau"?
"craque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,897 in our French list, against #44,959 for "crau". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "craque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #100,830 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "craque" and "crau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "chah vs crau". 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 #100,830 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