Which to use
“pick” and “picks” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #881
- “pick” frequency rank
- #4,786
- “picks” frequency rank
- 5667
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pick | picks |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A tool used for digging; a pickaxe. | plural of pick |
Where the eye mixes pick and picks
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. pick (/pɪk/) and picks (/pɪks/) 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) - “pick” sits inside “picks”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5667, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pick is recorded at frequency rank #881, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɪk/. picks is at rank #4,786, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɪks/.
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 5667, this pair ranks #514,427 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of pick vs picks
Shared letters: cikp. Private to "pick": -. Private to "picks": s.
"pick" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "picks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC