CROUSvscrowTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,502
“CROUS” frequency rank
#34,485
“crow” frequency rank
57987
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature CROUS crow
Definition Organisme chargé des œuvres sociales, de l’hébergement et de la restauration des étudiants. Corneille.

Where the eye mixes CROUS and crow

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
CROUS
4 ch
crow

Visual trap between CROUS and crow

A purely visual mix-up. CROUS (\kʁus\) and crow (\kɹəʊ\) 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 57987, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

CROUS is recorded at frequency rank #23,502, classified as anoun, pronounced \kʁus\. crow is at rank #34,485, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɹəʊ\.

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 57987, this pair ranks #111,717 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of CROUS vs crow

Shared letters: cor. Private to "CROUS": su. Private to "crow": w.

"CROUS" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "crow" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • CROUSccrous · crosu · crouss · crrous · cruos · rcous
  • crowccrow · corw · croww · crrow · crwo · rcow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "CROUS" for "crow" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kʁus\ versus \kɹəʊ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "CROUS" or "crow"?
"CROUS" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,502 in our French list, against #34,485 for "crow". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "CROUS" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #111,717 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "CROUS" and "crow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs crow". 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 #111,717 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