ambvsAmisWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: amb is a noun, Amis is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“amb” is a noun and “Amis” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,761
“amb” frequency rank
#33,933
“Amis” frequency rank
83694
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amb Amis
Definition The outline of a spore or pollen grain, as seen in a polar view. A surname from Old French.

Letter map: amb vs Amis

Shared letters muted; letters that set amb and Amis apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. amb runs 3 letters (VCC) against Amis's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
amb
4 ch
Amis

Role in the sentence - amb and Amis

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: amb is anoun and Amisaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83694, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amb is recorded at frequency rank #49,761, classified as anoun. Amis is at rank #33,933, tagged as aname, pronounced /əˈmiː/.

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 83694, this pair ranks #13,333 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of amb vs Amis

Shared letters: am. Private to "amb": b. Private to "Amis": is.

"amb" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "Amis" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Amis ← ammis · amsi

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "amb" for "Amis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "amb" is a noun and "Amis" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "amb" or "Amis"?
"Amis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,933 in our English list, against #49,761 for "amb". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "amb" vs "Amis" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "amb" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Amis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,333 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amb" and "Amis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alc vs amb". 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 #13,333 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list