Which to use
“king” and “kings” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #697
- “king” frequency rank
- #3,566
- “kings” frequency rank
- 4263
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | king | kings |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation. | plural of king |
Where the eye mixes king and kings
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. king (/ˈkɪŋ/) and kings (/kɪŋz/) 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 extra letter(s) - “king” sits inside “kings”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4263, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
king is recorded at frequency rank #697, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɪŋ/. kings is at rank #3,566, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kɪŋz/.
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 4263, this pair ranks #519,488 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of king vs kings
Shared letters: gikn. Private to "king": -. Private to "kings": s.
"king" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "kings" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC