Which to use
“picture” and “pictures” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #777
- “picture” frequency rank
- #1,282
- “pictures” frequency rank
- 2059
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | picture | pictures |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc. | plural of picture |
Where the eye mixes picture and pictures
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. picture (/ˈpɪk.(t)ʃə/) and pictures (/ˈpɪk.(t)ʃəz/) 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) - “picture” sits inside “pictures”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2059, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
picture is recorded at frequency rank #777, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɪk.(t)ʃə/. pictures is at rank #1,282, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɪk.(t)ʃəz/.
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 2059, this pair ranks #525,958 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of picture vs pictures
Shared letters: ceiprtu. Private to "picture": -. Private to "pictures": s.
"picture" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "pictures" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC