Which to use
“firth” and “frith” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #22,972
- “firth” frequency rank
- #47,063
- “frith” frequency rank
- 70035
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | firth | frith |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An arm or inlet of the sea; a river estuary. | Peace; security. |
Where the eye mixes firth and frith
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between firth and frith
A purely visual mix-up. firth (/fɜːθ/) and frith (/fɹɪθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (ir ↔ ri) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70035, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
firth is recorded at frequency rank #22,972, classified as anoun, pronounced /fɜːθ/. frith is at rank #47,063, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɹɪθ/.
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 70035, this pair ranks #52,189 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of firth vs frith
Shared letters: fhirt. Private to "firth": -. Private to "frith": -.
"firth" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC · "frith" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "firth" for "frith" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "firth" or "frith" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "firth" and "frith" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "firth" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "frith" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #52,189 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "firth" and "frith" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frith vs frothy". 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 #52,189 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.