crimvscrinTell them apart

Which to use

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

#37,259
“crim” frequency rank
#42,257
“crin” frequency rank
79516
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crim crin
Definition Criminel. Poil long et rude qui pousse au cou, à la queue et aux extrémités inférieures des membres de certains animaux et spécialement des chevaux.

Where the eye mixes crim and crin

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. crim and crin follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
crim
4 ch
crin

Look-alike desk: crim vs crin

A purely visual mix-up. crim (\kɹɪm\) and crin (\kʁɛ̃\) 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 a single letter - m in “crim” becomes n in “crin”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79516, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crim is recorded at frequency rank #37,259, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɹɪm\. 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 79516, this pair ranks #23,092 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of crim vs crin

Shared letters: cir. Private to "crim": m. Private to "crin": n.

"crim" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "crin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crim ← ccrim · cirm · crimm · crmi · crrim · rcim
  • crin ← ccrin · cirn · crinn · crni · crrin · rcin

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crim" for "crin" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɹɪm\ versus \kʁɛ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "crim" vs "crin" - which ranks higher?
"crim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,259 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.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "crim" and "crin" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crim" 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 #23,092 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crim" 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 #23,092 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