QuakervsquakesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#23,959
“Quaker” frequency rank
#40,858
“quakes” frequency rank
64817
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Quaker quakes
Definition A believer of the Quaker faith and a member of the Society of Friends, known for their pacifist views. plural of quake

Where the eye mixes Quaker and quakes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Quaker and quakes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
Quaker
6 ch
quakes

Look-alike desk: Quaker vs quakes

A purely visual mix-up. Quaker (/ˈkweɪkə/) and quakes (/kweɪks/) 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 a single letter - r in “Quaker” becomes s in “quakes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64817, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Quaker is recorded at frequency rank #23,959, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈkweɪkə/. quakes is at rank #40,858, tagged as anoun, pronounced /kweɪks/.

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 64817, this pair ranks #75,839 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Quaker vs quakes

Shared letters: aekqu. Private to "Quaker": r. Private to "quakes": s.

"Quaker" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "quakes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Quaker ← qauker · qquaker · quaekr · quakerr · quakker · quakre · qukaer · uqaker
  • quakes ← qaukes · qquakes · quaeks · quakess · quakkes · quakse · qukaes · uqakes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Quaker" and "quakes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈkweɪkə/ versus /kweɪks/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Quaker" vs "quakes" - which ranks higher?
"Quaker" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,959 in our English list, against #40,858 for "quakes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Quaker" and "quakes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Quaker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "quakes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,839 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Quaker" and "quakes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "quacks vs quakes". 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 #75,839 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