saisvsso'sTell them apart

Quick tell: sais is a noun, so's is a contraction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sais” is a noun and “so's” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,467
“sais” frequency rank
#38,171
“so's” frequency rank
82638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sais so's
Definition A groom, or servant with responsibility for the horses. So that, in order that.

Letter map: sais vs so's

Shared letters muted; letters that set sais and so's apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sais runs 4 letters (CVVC) against so's's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
sais
4 ch
so's

Grammar separator: sais vs so's

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sais is anoun and so'sacontraction. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82638, 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/. so's is at rank #38,171, tagged as acontraction.

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 82638, this pair ranks #15,366 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sais vs so's

Shared letters: s. Private to "sais": ai. Private to "so's": o.

"sais" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "so's" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sais ← asis · saiss · sasi · sias · ssais

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sais" for "so's" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sais" is a noun and "so's" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "sais" or "so's" show up more?
"so's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,171 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sais" and "so's".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "so's" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,366 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sais" and "so's" 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 #15,366 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