Which to use
“sepsis” and “stasis” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,714
- “sepsis” frequency rank
- #29,480
- “stasis” frequency rank
- 58194
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sepsis | stasis |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A serious medical condition in which the whole body is inflamed, causing injury to its own tissues and organs as a response to infection. | A slackening or arrest of the blood current, due not to a lessening of the heart’s beat, but to some abnormal resistance of the capillary walls. |
Where the eye mixes sepsis and stasis
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. sepsis (CVCCVC) and stasis (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses sepsis with stasis
A purely visual mix-up. sepsis (/ˈsɛpsɪs/) and stasis (/ˈsteɪsɪs/) 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 58194, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sepsis is recorded at frequency rank #28,714, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛpsɪs/. stasis is at rank #29,480, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsteɪsɪs/.
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 58194, this pair ranks #114,216 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sepsis vs stasis
Shared letters: is. Private to "sepsis": ep. Private to "stasis": at.
"sepsis" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "stasis" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sepsis" for "stasis" ever safe?
Frequency check: "sepsis" vs "stasis" - 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 "sepsis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stasis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #114,216 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sepsis" and "stasis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "staid vs stasis". 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 #114,216 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.