SabahvsSalehWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,575
“Sabah” frequency rank
#28,351
“Saleh” frequency rank
60926
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Sabah Saleh
Definition A state in eastern Malaysia located at the Northern part of the Borneo island with the main city Kota Kinabalu as its capital. A prophet of Islam who prophesied to the people of Thamud.

Letter map: Sabah vs Saleh

Shared letters muted; letters that set Sabah and Saleh apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Sabah and Saleh follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Sabah
5 ch
Saleh

Pair insight - Sabah / Saleh

Sabah and Saleh 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60926, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Sabah is recorded at frequency rank #32,575, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈsɑːbɑː/. Saleh is at rank #28,351, tagged as aname.

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 60926, this pair ranks #97,338 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Sabah vs Saleh

Shared letters: ahs. Private to "Sabah": b. Private to "Saleh": el.

"Sabah" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Saleh" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Sabahasbah · saabh · sabahh · sabbah · sbaah · ssabah
  • Salehasleh · saelh · salehh · salhe · salleh · slaeh · ssaleh

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Sabah" and "Saleh" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "Sabah" or "Saleh"?
"Saleh" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,351 in our English list, against #32,575 for "Sabah". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "Sabah" vs "Saleh" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Sabah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Saleh" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #97,338 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Sabah" and "Saleh" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sabah vs Sagar". 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 #97,338 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