Which to use
“SFO” is a name and “sift” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,889
- “SFO” frequency rank
- #28,368
- “sift” frequency rank
- 71257
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | SFO | sift |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Initialism of Serious Fraud Office. | To sieve or strain (something). |
Letter map: SFO vs sift
Shared letters muted; letters that set SFO and sift apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for SFO / sift
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: SFO is aname and siftaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71257, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
SFO is recorded at frequency rank #42,889, classified as aname. sift is at rank #28,368, tagged as averb, pronounced /sɪft/.
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 71257, this pair ranks #47,436 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of SFO vs sift
Shared letters: fs. Private to "SFO": o. Private to "sift": it.
"SFO" · 3 letters · shape CCV · "sift" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- sift ← isft · sfit · sifft · siftt · sitf · ssift
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "SFO" for "sift" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "SFO" or "sift" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "SFO" and "sift". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "SFO" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sift" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #47,436 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "SFO" and "sift" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "SFO vs Sif". 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 #47,436 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.