Which to use
“king” and “kite” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #697
- “king” frequency rank
- #13,945
- “kite” frequency rank
- 14642
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | king | kite |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A male monarch; a man who heads a monarchy; in an absolute monarchy, the supreme ruler of his nation. | A bird of prey of the family Accipitridae. |
Where the eye mixes king and kite
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. king (/ˈkɪŋ/) and kite (/kaɪt/) 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 14642, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
king is recorded at frequency rank #697, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkɪŋ/. kite is at rank #13,945, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kaɪt/.
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 14642, this pair ranks #468,809 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of king vs kite
Shared letters: ik. Private to "king": gn. Private to "kite": et.
"king" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "kite" · 4 letters · shape CVCV