killsvskitsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,028
“kills” frequency rank
#9,912
“kits” frequency rank
13940
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kills kits
Definition plural of kill plural of kit

Where the eye mixes kills and kits

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

5 ch
kills
4 ch
kits

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. kills (/kɪlz/) and kits (/kɪts/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13940, 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/. kits is at rank #9,912, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɪts/.

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 13940, this pair ranks #472,974 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of kills vs kits

Shared letters: iks. Private to "kills": l. Private to "kits": t.

"kills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "kits" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • killsiklls · killss · kils · kilsl · kkills · klils
  • kitsikts · kist · kitss · kitts · kkits · ktis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "kills" and "kits" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kɪlz/ versus /kɪts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "kills" or "kits"?
"kills" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,028 in our English list, against #9,912 for "kits". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list