sensesvssepsisWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“senses” and “sepsis” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#8,088
“senses” frequency rank
#28,714
“sepsis” frequency rank
36802
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature senses sepsis
Definition plural of sense A serious medical condition in which the whole body is inflamed, causing injury to its own tissues and organs as a response to infection.

Where the eye mixes senses and sepsis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. senses and sepsis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
senses
6 ch
sepsis

Look-alike desk: senses vs sepsis

A purely visual mix-up. senses (/ˈsɛnsɪz/) and sepsis (/ˈsɛpsɪs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36802, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

senses is recorded at frequency rank #8,088, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛnsɪz/. sepsis is at rank #28,714, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛpsɪs/.

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 36802, this pair ranks #300,032 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of senses vs sepsis

Shared letters: es. Private to "senses": n. Private to "sepsis": ip.

"senses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sepsis" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • senses ← esnses · seness · sennses · sensess · sensses · sesnes · sneses · ssenses
  • sepsis ← espsis · sepiss · seppsis · sepsiss · sepssi · sepssis · sespis · spesis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "senses" for "sepsis" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈsɛnsɪz/ versus /ˈsɛpsɪs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "senses" or "sepsis" show up more?
"senses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,088 in our English list, against #28,714 for "sepsis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "senses" and "sepsis" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "senses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sepsis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #300,032 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "senses" and "sepsis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sepia vs sepsis". 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 #300,032 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