crovscrocoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#33,629
“cro” frequency rank
#49,010
“croco” frequency rank
82639
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cro croco
Definition (Toronto) Camarade. Crocodile.

Where the eye mixes cro and croco

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. cro runs 3 letters (CCV) against croco's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
cro
5 ch
croco

Why the eye confuses cro with croco

A purely visual mix-up. cro (\kɹəʊ\) and croco (\kʁɔ.ko\) 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 extra letter(s) - “cro” sits inside “croco”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82639, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cro is recorded at frequency rank #33,629, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɹəʊ\. croco is at rank #49,010, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɔ.ko\.

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 82639, this pair ranks #16,312 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cro vs croco

Shared letters: cor. Private to "cro": -. Private to "croco": -.

"cro" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "croco" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • croco ← ccroco · corco · crcoo · crocco · crooc · crroco

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cro" for "croco" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɹəʊ\ versus \kʁɔ.ko\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cro" or "croco"?
"cro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,629 in our French list, against #49,010 for "croco". 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 "cro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "croco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,312 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cro" and "croco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "croce vs croco". 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 #16,312 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