praisevspraisesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#4,259
“praise” frequency rank
#14,813
“praises” frequency rank
19072
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature praise praises
Definition Commendation; favourable representation in words. plural of praise

Where the eye mixes praise and praises

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
praise
7 ch
praises

Look-alike desk: praise vs praises

A purely visual mix-up. praise (/pɹeɪz/) and praises (/ˈpɹeɪzɪz/) 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) - “praise” sits inside “praises”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19072, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

praise is recorded at frequency rank #4,259, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɹeɪz/. praises is at rank #14,813, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɹeɪzɪz/.

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 19072, this pair ranks #440,694 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of praise vs praises

Shared letters: aeiprs. Private to "praise": -. Private to "praises": -.

"praise" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "praises" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • praiseparise · ppraise · praies · praisse · prasie · priase · prraise · rpaise
  • praisesparises · ppraises · praiess · praisess · praisses · prasies · priases · prraises

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "praise" for "praises" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/pɹeɪz/ versus /ˈpɹeɪzɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "praise" vs "praises" - which ranks higher?
"praise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,259 in our English list, against #14,813 for "praises". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "praise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "praises" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #440,694 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "praise" and "praises" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Prairies vs praises". 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 #440,694 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