Which to use
“shard” and “sharps” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,083
- “shard” frequency rank
- #46,172
- “sharps” frequency rank
- 75255
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shard | sharps |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A piece of broken glass or pottery, especially one found in an archaeological dig. | plural of sharp |
Where the eye mixes shard and sharps
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. shard runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against sharps's 6 (CCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between shard and sharps
A purely visual mix-up. shard (/ʃaːd/) and sharps (/ʃɑɹps/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75255, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shard is recorded at frequency rank #29,083, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃaːd/. sharps is at rank #46,172, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ʃɑɹps/.
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 75255, this pair ranks #33,696 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of shard vs sharps
Shared letters: ahrs. Private to "shard": d. Private to "sharps": p.
"shard" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "sharps" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "shard" and "sharps" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "shard" or "sharps" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "shard" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sharps" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #33,696 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "shard" and "sharps" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Shams vs sharps". 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 #33,696 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.