Which to use
“seat” and “sec” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,615
- “seat” frequency rank
- #4,268
- “sec” frequency rank
- 5883
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seat | sec |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Something to be sat upon. | Second, ¹⁄₆₀ of a minute. |
Where the eye mixes seat and sec
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. seat (/siːt/) and sec (/sɛk/) 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 5883, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seat is recorded at frequency rank #1,615, classified as anoun, pronounced /siːt/. sec is at rank #4,268, tagged as anoun, pronounced /sɛk/.
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 5883, this pair ranks #513,633 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of seat vs sec
Shared letters: es. Private to "seat": at. Private to "sec": c.
"seat" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "sec" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- seat ← saet · seatt · seta · sseat