Which to use
“seaman” and “seamen” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #22,501
- “seaman” frequency rank
- #31,339
- “seamen” frequency rank
- 53840
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seaman | seamen |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Synonym of sailor, particularly on a maritime vessel. | plural of seaman |
Where the eye mixes seaman and seamen
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. seaman and seamen follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: seaman vs seamen
A purely visual mix-up. seaman (/ˈsiːmən/) and seamen (/ˈsiːmɛn/) 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 a single letter - a in “seaman” becomes e in “seamen”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53840, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seaman is recorded at frequency rank #22,501, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsiːmən/. seamen is at rank #31,339, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsiːmɛn/.
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 53840, this pair ranks #145,759 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of seaman vs seamen
Shared letters: aemns. Private to "seaman": -. Private to "seamen": -.
"seaman" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "seamen" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "seaman" for "seamen" ever safe?
Frequency check: "seaman" vs "seamen" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "seaman" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "seamen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #145,759 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seaman" and "seamen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Seager vs seamen". 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 #145,759 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.