Which to use
“crawl” is a noun and “cruel” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #43,358
- “crawl” frequency rank
- #5,617
- “cruel” frequency rank
- 48975
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | crawl | cruel |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | , crol | que tem prazer em fazer mal |
Where the eye mixes crawl and cruel
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. crawl (CCVCC) and cruel (CCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: crawl vs cruel
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: crawl is /ˈkɾaw/ while cruel is /kɾu.ˈɛɫ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48975, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
crawl is recorded at frequency rank #43,358, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɾaw/. cruel is at rank #5,617, tagged as anadj, pronounced /kɾu.ˈɛɫ/.
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 48975, this pair ranks #16,126 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of crawl vs cruel
Shared letters: clr. Private to "crawl": aw. Private to "cruel": eu.
"crawl" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "cruel" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "crawl" and "cruel" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "crawl" vs "cruel" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "crawl" and "cruel" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "crawl" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cruel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #16,126 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "crawl" and "cruel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crawl vs crowd". 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 #16,126 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.