kills vs kites, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#4,028
“kills” frequency rank: #30,474
“kites” frequency rank: 34502
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	kills	kites
Definition	plural of kill	plural of kite

Where the eye mixes kills and kites

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch

kills

5 ch

kites

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. kills (/kɪlz/) and kites (/kaɪts/) 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 34502, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kills is recorded at frequency rank #4,028, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɪlz/. kites is at rank #30,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kaɪts/.

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 34502, this pair ranks #320,235 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kills vs kites

Shared letters: iks. Private to "kills": l. Private to "kites": et.

"kills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC · "kites" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

kills ← iklls · killss · kils · kilsl · kkills · klils
kites ← iktes · kiets · kitess · kitse · kittes · kkites · kties

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "kills" and "kites" be used interchangeably?

No. They are said differently (/kɪlz/ versus /kaɪts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

Which is more common, "kills" or "kites"?

"kills" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,028 in our English list, against #30,474 for "kites". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "kills" and "kites". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "kills" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "kites" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #320,235 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"kills" and "kites" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kites vs knits". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.