kitevskitsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,945
“kite” frequency rank
#9,912
“kits” frequency rank
23857
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kite kits
Definition A bird of prey of the family Accipitridae. plural of kit

Where the eye mixes kite and kits

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

4 ch
kite
4 ch
kits

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. kite (/kaɪt/) 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 a single letter - e in “kite” becomes s in “kits”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kite is recorded at frequency rank #13,945, classified as anoun, pronounced /kaɪt/. 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 23857, this pair ranks #406,214 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of kite vs kits

Shared letters: ikt. Private to "kite": e. Private to "kits": s.

"kite" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "kits" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • kiteikte · kiet · kitte · kkite · ktie
  • kitsikts · kist · kitss · kitts · kkits · ktis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "kite" and "kits" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/kaɪt/ versus /kɪts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "kite" or "kits"?
"kits" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,912 in our English list, against #13,945 for "kite". 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