policesvsponiesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#42,829
“polices” frequency rank
#19,942
“ponies” frequency rank
62771
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature polices ponies
Definition plural of police (“police officer”) Horsepower.

Letter map: polices vs ponies

Shared letters muted; letters that set polices and ponies apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. polices runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against ponies's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
polices
6 ch
ponies

Corpus notes: polices and ponies

polices and ponies are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62771, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

polices is recorded at frequency rank #42,829, classified as anoun, pronounced /pəˈliːsɪz/. ponies is at rank #19,942, tagged as anoun.

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 62771, this pair ranks #86,603 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of polices vs ponies

Shared letters: eiops. Private to "polices": cl. Private to "ponies": n.

"polices" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "ponies" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • polices ← oplices · ploices · poilces · polcies · policces · policess · policse · poliecs
  • ponies ← opnies · pnoies · poines · poneis · poniess · ponise · ponnies · pponies

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "polices" for "ponies" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "polices" or "ponies" show up more?
"ponies" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,942 in our English list, against #42,829 for "polices". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "polices" and "ponies".

  • Full dictionary entry for "polices" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ponies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #86,603 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "polices" and "ponies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plies vs polices". 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 #86,603 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list