crewvscritTell them apart

Which to use

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

#20,685
“crew” frequency rank
#32,770
“crit” frequency rank
53455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crew crit
Definition Groupe. Cri.

Where the eye mixes crew and crit

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

4 ch
crew
4 ch
crit

Visual trap between crew and crit

A purely visual mix-up. crew (\kʁu\) and crit (\ˈkɾit\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crew is recorded at frequency rank #20,685, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁu\. crit is at rank #32,770, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈkɾit\.

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 53455, this pair ranks #140,621 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crew vs crit

Shared letters: cr. Private to "crew": ew. Private to "crit": it.

"crew" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "crit" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crewccrew · cerw · creww · crrew · crwe · rcew
  • critccrit · cirt · critt · crrit · crti · rcit

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crew" and "crit" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kʁu\ versus \ˈkɾit\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "crew" or "crit"?
"crew" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,685 in our French list, against #32,770 for "crit". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crew" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #140,621 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crew" and "crit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CIP vs crit". 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 #140,621 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