Which to use
“opium” and “opus” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #15,875
- “opium” frequency rank
- #23,619
- “opus” frequency rank
- 39494
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | opium | opus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A yellow-brown, addictive narcotic drug obtained from the dried juice of unripe pods of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, and containing alkaloids such as morphine, codeine, and papaverine. | A work of music or set of works with a specified rank in an ordering of a composer's complete published works. |
Where the eye mixes opium and opus
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: opium vs opus
A purely visual mix-up. opium (/ˈoʊ.pi.əm/) and opus (/ˈəʊpəs/) 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 39494, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
opium is recorded at frequency rank #15,875, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈoʊ.pi.əm/. opus is at rank #23,619, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈəʊpəs/.
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 39494, this pair ranks #276,154 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of opium vs opus
Shared letters: opu. Private to "opium": im. Private to "opus": s.
"opium" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC · "opus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "opium" and "opus" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "opium" or "opus" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "opium" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "opus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #276,154 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "opium" and "opus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "opus vs OWS". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #276,154 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.