saisvssakesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#44,467
“sais” frequency rank
#33,006
“sakes” frequency rank
77473
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sais sakes
Definition A groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses. plural of sake (“benefit”)

Where the eye mixes sais and sakes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
sais
5 ch
sakes

Look-alike desk: sais vs sakes

A purely visual mix-up. sais (/saɪs/) and sakes (/seɪks/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77473, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sais is recorded at frequency rank #44,467, classified as anoun, pronounced /saɪs/. sakes is at rank #33,006, tagged as anoun, pronounced /seɪks/.

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 77473, this pair ranks #27,148 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sais vs sakes

Shared letters: as. Private to "sais": i. Private to "sakes": ek.

"sais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "sakes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • saisasis · saiss · sasi · sias · ssais
  • sakesaskes · saeks · sakess · sakkes · sakse · skaes · ssakes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sais" for "sakes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/saɪs/ versus /seɪks/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "sais" or "sakes"?
"sakes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,006 in our English list, against #44,467 for "sais". 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 "sais" and "sakes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sakes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,148 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sais" and "sakes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sais vs suds". 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 #27,148 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