pickvspriceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#881
“pick” frequency rank
#592
“price” frequency rank
1473
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pick price
Definition A tool used for digging; a pickaxe. The cost required to gain possession of something.

Where the eye mixes pick and price

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

4 ch
pick
5 ch
price

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pick (/pɪk/) and price (/pɹaɪs/) 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 1473, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pick is recorded at frequency rank #881, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɪk/. price is at rank #592, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɹaɪs/.

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 1473, this pair ranks #527,358 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pick vs price

Shared letters: cip. Private to "pick": k. Private to "price": er.

"pick" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "price" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pickipck · pcik · picck · pickk · pikc · ppick
  • pricepirce · pprice · prcie · pricce · priec · prrice · rpice

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pick" and "price" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/pɪk/ versus /pɹaɪs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pick" or "price"?
"price" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #592 in our English list, against #881 for "pick". 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