# shame vs shire

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### shame
*noun · IPA /ʃeɪm/ · frequency rank #2,761*
An uncomfortable or painful feeling due to recognition or consciousness of one's own impropriety or dishonor, or something being exposed that should have been kept private.

### shire
*noun · IPA /ʃaɪə/ · frequency rank #15,700*
An administrative area or district between about the 5th to the 11th century, subdivided into hundreds or wapentakes and jointly governed by an ealdorman and a sheriff; also, a present-day area corresponding to such a historical district; a county; especially (England), a county having a name ending in -shire.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/shame-vs-shire