Which to use
“plough” is a noun and “Pugh” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,887
- “plough” frequency rank
- #31,719
- “Pugh” frequency rank
- 57606
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | plough | Pugh |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A device pulled through the ground in order to break it open into furrows for planting. | A surname from Welsh. |
Where the eye mixes plough and Pugh
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. plough runs 6 letters (CCVVCC) against Pugh's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between plough and Pugh
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: plough is /plaʊ/ while Pugh is /pjuː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57606, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
plough is recorded at frequency rank #25,887, classified as anoun, pronounced /plaʊ/. Pugh is at rank #31,719, tagged as aname, pronounced /pjuː/.
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 57606, this pair ranks #118,200 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of plough vs Pugh
Shared letters: ghpu. Private to "plough": lo. Private to "Pugh": -.
"plough" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC · "Pugh" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "plough" for "Pugh" ever safe?
Which is more common, "plough" or "Pugh"?
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 "plough" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Pugh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #118,200 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "plough" and "Pugh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "psh vs Pugh". 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 #118,200 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.