sakivsshakeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: saki is a noun, shake is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“saki” is a noun and “shake” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,028
“saki” frequency rank
#4,121
“shake” frequency rank
53149
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature saki shake
Definition Alternative spelling of saké (“rice wine”). To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.

Letter map: saki vs shake

Shared letters muted; letters that set saki and shake apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. saki runs 4 letters (CVCV) against shake's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
saki
5 ch
shake

Part-of-speech tell for saki / shake

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: saki is anoun and shakeaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53149, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

saki is recorded at frequency rank #49,028, classified as anoun. shake is at rank #4,121, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈʃeɪk/.

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 53149, this pair ranks #151,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of saki vs shake

Shared letters: aks. Private to "saki": i. Private to "shake": eh.

"saki" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "shake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sakiaski · saik · sakki · skai · ssaki
  • shakehsake · sahke · shaek · shakke · shhake · shkae · sshake

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "saki" and "shake" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "saki" is a noun and "shake" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "saki" vs "shake" - which ranks higher?
"shake" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,121 in our English list, against #49,028 for "saki". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "saki" vs "shake" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "saki" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shake" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "saki" and "shake" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saki vs savin". 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 #151,354 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