selfvsSulWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: self is a pronoun, Sul is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“self” is a pronoun and “Sul” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#564
“self” frequency rank
#33,868
“Sul” frequency rank
34432
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature self Sul
Definition Himself, herself, itself, themself, themselves; that specific (person mentioned). Diminutive of Sully.

Letter map: self vs Sul

Shared letters muted; letters that set self and Sul apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
self
3 ch
Sul

Role in the sentence - self and Sul

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: self is apronoun and Sulaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34432, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

self is recorded at frequency rank #564, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈsɛlf/. Sul is at rank #33,868, tagged as aname.

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 34432, this pair ranks #320,827 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of self vs Sul

Shared letters: ls. Private to "self": ef. Private to "Sul": u.

"self" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Sul" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • selfeslf · sefl · selff · sellf · slef · sself

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "self" and "Sul" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "self" is a pronoun and "Sul" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "self" or "Sul"?
"self" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #564 in our English list, against #33,868 for "Sul". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "self" and "Sul". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "self" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Sul" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,827 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "self" and "Sul" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sul vs sura". 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 #320,827 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