Which to use
“sever” is a verb and “sexes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #23,989
- “sever” frequency rank
- #16,583
- “sexes” frequency rank
- 40572
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sever | sexes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To cut free. | plural of sex |
Where the eye mixes sever and sexes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. sever and sexes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: sever vs sexes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sever is /ˈsɛv.ɚ/ while sexes is /ˈsɛksɪz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sever is recorded at frequency rank #23,989, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈsɛv.ɚ/. sexes is at rank #16,583, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛksɪz/.
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 40572, this pair ranks #266,341 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sever vs sexes
Shared letters: es. Private to "sever": rv. Private to "sexes": x.
"sever" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "sexes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sever" and "sexes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "sever" or "sexes" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "sever" and "sexes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "sever" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sexes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #266,341 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sever" and "sexes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Seager vs sever". 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 #266,341 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.