aminevsampleTell them apart

Quick tell: amine is a noun, ample is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“amine” is a noun and “ample” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,315
“amine” frequency rank
#10,978
“ample” frequency rank
48293
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amine ample
Definition A functional group formally derived from ammonia by replacing one, two or three hydrogen atoms with hydrocarbon or other radicals. A fully sufficient or abundant quantity of; enough or more than enough.

Where the eye mixes amine and ample

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

5 ch
amine
5 ch
ample

Why the eye confuses amine with ample

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: amine is /əˈmiːn/ while ample is /ˈæm.pəl/. 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 determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48293, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amine is recorded at frequency rank #37,315, classified as anoun, pronounced /əˈmiːn/. ample is at rank #10,978, tagged as adet, pronounced /ˈæm.pəl/.

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 48293, this pair ranks #194,496 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of amine vs ample

Shared letters: aem. Private to "amine": in. Private to "ample": lp.

"amine" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "ample" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • amineaimne · amien · aminne · ammine · amnie
  • ampleamlpe · ammple · ampel · amplle · ampple · apmle

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "amine" and "ample" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "amine" is a noun and "ample" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "amine" vs "ample" - which ranks higher?
"ample" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,978 in our English list, against #37,315 for "amine". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "amine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ample" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,496 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amine" and "ample" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aline vs amine". 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 #194,496 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