crushvscruzConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#24,279
“crush” frequency rank
#1,606
“cruz” frequency rank
25885
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature crush cruz
Definition interesse em alguém, atração física por outra pessoa, possível ou platônica símbolo formado por dois planos, normalmente linhas, um orientado horizontalmente e outro na vertical, cruzando-se e formando um ângulo de 90 graus; a linha é, por vezes, maior para baixo do cruzamento

Letter map: crush vs cruz

Shared letters muted; letters that set crush and cruz apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. crush runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against cruz's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
crush
4 ch
cruz

Pair insight - crush / cruz

crush and cruz are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25885, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

crush is recorded at frequency rank #24,279, classified as anoun. cruz is at rank #1,606, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɾuʃ/.

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 25885, this pair ranks #43,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of crush vs cruz

Shared letters: cru. Private to "crush": hs. Private to "cruz": z.

"crush" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "cruz" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • crush ← ccrush · crrush · crsuh · cruhs · crushh · crussh · cursh · rcush
  • cruz ← ccruz · crruz · cruzz · crzu · curz · rcuz

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "crush" for "cruz" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "crush" vs "cruz" - which ranks higher?
"cruz" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,606 in our Portuguese list, against #24,279 for "crush". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "crush" vs "cruz" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "crush" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cruz" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "crush" and "cruz" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "crash vs crush". 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 #43,355 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