crossevscrossesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#16,332
“crosse” frequency rank
#47,268
“crosses” frequency rank
63600
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crosse crosses
Definition Bâton pastoral d’évêque ou d’abbé, dont l’extrémité supérieure se recourbe en volute. Pluriel de crosse.

Same sound, different letters: crosse vs crosses

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. crosse runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against crosses's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
crosse
7 ch
crosses

Ear matches; page differs - crosse and crosses

This is the hard kind. crosse and crosses are pronounced identically (\kʁɔs\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “crosse” sits inside “crosses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63600, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crosse is recorded at frequency rank #16,332, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁɔs\. crosses is at rank #47,268, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kʁɔs\.

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 63600, this pair ranks #81,172 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of crosse vs crosses

Shared letters: ceors. Private to "crosse": -. Private to "crosses": -.

"crosse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "crosses" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crosse ← ccrosse · croses · crrosse · crsose · rcosse
  • crosses ← ccrosses · corsses · crosess · crossess · crossse · crrosses · crsoses · rcosses

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "crosse" and "crosses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kʁɔs\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "crosse" vs "crosses" - which ranks higher?
"crosse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,332 in our French list, against #47,268 for "crosses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crosse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crosses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,172 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crosse" and "crosses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "causses vs crosses". 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 #81,172 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