kidsvskilnWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#530
“kids” frequency rank
#25,113
“kiln” frequency rank
25643
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kids kiln
Definition plural of kid An oven or furnace or a heated chamber, for the purpose of hardening, burning, calcining or drying anything; for example, firing ceramics, curing or preserving tobacco, or drying grain.

Where the eye mixes kids and kiln

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
kids
4 ch
kiln

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. kids (/kɪdz/) and kiln (/kɪln/) 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 25643, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kids is recorded at frequency rank #530, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɪdz/. kiln is at rank #25,113, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɪln/.

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 25643, this pair ranks #392,714 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kids vs kiln

Shared letters: ik. Private to "kids": ds. Private to "kiln": ln.

"kids" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "kiln" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • kidsikds · kdis · kidds · kidss · kisd · kkids
  • kilnikln · killn · kilnn · kinl · kkiln · klin

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "kids" and "kiln" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kɪdz/ versus /kɪln/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "kids" or "kiln"?
"kids" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #530 in our English list, against #25,113 for "kiln". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list