crauvscryWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#44,959
“crau” frequency rank
#22,822
“cry” frequency rank
67781
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes crau and cry

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
crau
3 ch
cry

Look-alike desk: crau vs cry

A purely visual mix-up. crau (\kʁo\) and cry (\ˈkɹaɪ\) 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 67781, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crau is recorded at frequency rank #44,959, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁo\. cry is at rank #22,822, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɹaɪ\.

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 67781, this pair ranks #61,954 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of crau vs cry

Shared letters: cr. Private to "crau": au. Private to "cry": y.

"crau" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "cry" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • craucaru · ccrau · crrau · crua · rcau

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crau" and "cry" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kʁo\ versus \ˈkɹaɪ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "crau" or "cry" show up more?
"cry" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,822 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "crau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,954 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crau" and "cry" 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 #61,954 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