Which to use
“sardine” and “sardines” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #43,899
- “sardine” frequency rank
- #31,745
- “sardines” frequency rank
- 75644
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sardine | sardines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any one of several species of small herring which are commonly preserved in olive oil or in tins for food, especially the pilchard, or European sardine (Sardina pilchardus, syn. Clupea pilchardus). The American sardines of the Atlantic coast are mostly the young of the Atlantic herring and of the menhaden. | plural of sardine |
Letter map: sardine vs sardines
Shared letters muted; letters that set sardine and sardines apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. sardine runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against sardines's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Corpus notes: sardine and sardines
sardine and sardines 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 differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “sardine” sits inside “sardines”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75644, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sardine is recorded at frequency rank #43,899, classified as anoun, pronounced /sɑːˈdiːn/. sardines is at rank #31,745, tagged as anoun.
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 75644, this pair ranks #32,517 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sardine vs sardines
Shared letters: adeinrs. Private to "sardine": -. Private to "sardines": -.
"sardine" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "sardines" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sardine" for "sardines" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "sardine" or "sardines" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "sardine" and "sardines". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "sardine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sardines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #32,517 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sardine" and "sardines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sardine vs serine". 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 #32,517 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.