kitvskitesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,505
“kit” frequency rank
#30,474
“kites” frequency rank
33979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kit kites
Definition A circular wooden vessel, made of hooped staves. plural of kite

Where the eye mixes kit and kites

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

3 ch
kit
5 ch
kites

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. kit (/kɪt/) 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 differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “kit” sits inside “kites”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kit is recorded at frequency rank #3,505, classified as anoun, pronounced /kɪt/. 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 33979, this pair ranks #324,701 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kit vs kites

Shared letters: ikt. Private to "kit": -. Private to "kites": es.

"kit" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "kites" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • kitesiktes · kiets · kitess · kitse · kittes · kkites · kties

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "kit" and "kites" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kɪt/ versus /kaɪts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "kit" or "kites"?
"kit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,505 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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list