pukevspyreWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#20,193
“puke” frequency rank
#42,355
“pyre” frequency rank
62548
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature puke pyre
Definition vomit. A funeral pile; a combustible heap on which corpses are burned.

Where the eye mixes puke and pyre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
puke
4 ch
pyre

Visual trap between puke and pyre

A purely visual mix-up. puke (/pjuːk/) and pyre (/ˈpaɪɚ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62548, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

puke is recorded at frequency rank #20,193, classified as anoun, pronounced /pjuːk/. pyre is at rank #42,355, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaɪɚ/.

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 62548, this pair ranks #87,890 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of puke vs pyre

Shared letters: ep. Private to "puke": ku. Private to "pyre": ry.

"puke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "pyre" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pukepkue · ppuke · puek · pukke · upke
  • pyreppyre · pyer · pyrre · pyyre · ypre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "puke" and "pyre" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/pjuːk/ versus /ˈpaɪɚ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "puke" or "pyre" show up more?
"puke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,193 in our English list, against #42,355 for "pyre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "puke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pyre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #87,890 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "puke" and "pyre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pyre vs pyrite". 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 #87,890 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