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Which to use

“cri” and “crime” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#28,523
“cri” frequency rank
#886
“crime” frequency rank
29409
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cri crime
Definition povo indígena da América do Norte, que habitava desde as montanhas Rochosas até o oceano Atlântico, tanto nos Estados Unidos da América quanto no Canadá conduta descrita na legislação penal como sendo proibida, por meio de um tipo penal

Where the eye mixes cri and crime

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

3 ch
cri
5 ch
crime

Why the eye confuses cri with crime

A purely visual mix-up. cri (/ˈkɾi/) and crime (/ˈkɾi.mɨ/) 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) - “cri” sits inside “crime”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29409, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cri is recorded at frequency rank #28,523, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɾi/. crime is at rank #886, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɾi.mɨ/.

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 29409, this pair ranks #39,230 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cri vs crime

Shared letters: cir. Private to "cri": -. Private to "crime": em.

"cri" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "crime" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crime ← ccrime · cirme · criem · crimme · crmie · crrime · rcime

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cri" for "crime" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkɾi/ versus /ˈkɾi.mɨ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "cri" or "crime" show up more?
"crime" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #886 in our Portuguese list, against #28,523 for "cri". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cri" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "crime" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,230 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cri" and "crime" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coin vs cri". 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 #39,230 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list