drinkervsdrinksWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“drinker” and “drinks” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#22,958
“drinker” frequency rank
#3,424
“drinks” frequency rank
26382
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drinker drinks
Definition Agent noun of drink; someone or something that drinks. plural of drink

Where the eye mixes drinker and drinks

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
drinker
6 ch
drinks

Why the eye confuses drinker with drinks

A purely visual mix-up. drinker (/ˈdɹɪŋkə(ɹ)/) and drinks (/dɹɪŋks/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26382, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drinker is recorded at frequency rank #22,958, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɹɪŋkə(ɹ)/. drinks is at rank #3,424, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɹɪŋks/.

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 26382, this pair ranks #387,115 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drinker vs drinks

Shared letters: diknr. Private to "drinker": e. Private to "drinks": s.

"drinker" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "drinks" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drinkerddrinker · dirnker · drikner · drinekr · drinkerr · drinkker · drinkre · drinnker
  • drinksddrinks · dirnks · drikns · drinkks · drinkss · drinnks · drinsk · drniks

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drinker" for "drinks" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈdɹɪŋkə(ɹ)/ versus /dɹɪŋks/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "drinker" vs "drinks" - which ranks higher?
"drinks" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,424 in our English list, against #22,958 for "drinker". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "drinker" and "drinks" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drinker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drinks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #387,115 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drinker" and "drinks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drinker vs Drucker". 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 #387,115 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