Which to use
“childs” and “chills” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #23,202
- “childs” frequency rank
- #16,665
- “chills” frequency rank
- 39867
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | childs | chills |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of child | plural of chill |
Letter map: childs vs chills
Shared letters muted; letters that set childs and chills apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. childs and chills follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Pair insight - childs / chills
childs and chills are indexed as a confusable English 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 a single letter - d in “childs” becomes l in “chills”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
childs is recorded at frequency rank #23,202, classified as anoun. chills is at rank #16,665, tagged as anoun, pronounced /t͡ʃɪlz/.
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 39867, this pair ranks #272,765 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of childs vs chills
Shared letters: chils. Private to "childs": d. Private to "chills": -.
"childs" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC · "chills" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "childs" and "chills" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "childs" or "chills" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "childs" and "chills". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "childs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "chills" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #272,765 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "childs" and "chills" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "childs vs chives". 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 #272,765 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.