Which to use
“egress” and “excess” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #43,132
- “egress” frequency rank
- #5,035
- “excess” frequency rank
- 48167
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | egress | excess |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An exit or way out. | The state of surpassing or going beyond a limit; the state of being beyond sufficiency, necessity, or duty; more than what is usual or proper. |
Where the eye mixes egress and excess
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. egress and excess follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: egress vs excess
A purely visual mix-up. egress (/ˈiːɡɹɛs/) and excess (/ˈɛksɛs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
egress is recorded at frequency rank #43,132, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈiːɡɹɛs/. excess is at rank #5,035, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛksɛs/.
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 48167, this pair ranks #195,618 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of egress vs excess
Shared letters: es. Private to "egress": gr. Private to "excess": cx.
"egress" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "excess" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "egress" and "excess" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "egress" or "excess" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "egress" and "excess" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "egress" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "excess" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #195,618 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "egress" and "excess" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "egress vs empress". 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 #195,618 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.