Which to use
“ember” and “emcee” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #30,019
- “ember” frequency rank
- #40,230
- “emcee” frequency rank
- 70249
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ember | emcee |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A piece of coal or wood glowing by heat; a hot coal. | Alternative form of MC in its senses as |
Where the eye mixes ember and emcee
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between ember and emcee
A purely visual mix-up. ember (/ˈɛm.bə/) and emcee (/ˌɛmˈsiː/) 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 70249, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ember is recorded at frequency rank #30,019, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛm.bə/. emcee is at rank #40,230, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˌɛmˈsiː/.
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 70249, this pair ranks #51,295 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ember vs emcee
Shared letters: em. Private to "ember": br. Private to "emcee": c.
"ember" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC · "emcee" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ember" and "emcee" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "ember" or "emcee"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "ember" and "emcee" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "ember" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "emcee" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #51,295 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ember" and "emcee" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "eee vs emcee". 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 #51,295 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.