she'svsshopsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: she's is a contraction, shops is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“she's” is a contraction and “shops” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#552
“she's” frequency rank
#4,049
“shops” frequency rank
4601
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature she's shops
Definition Contraction of she + is. plural of shop

Where the eye mixes she's and shops

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
she's
5 ch
shops

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: she's is /ʃiːz/ while shops is /ʃɑps/. 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 (contraction vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4601, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

she's is recorded at frequency rank #552, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ʃiːz/. shops is at rank #4,049, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ʃɑps/.

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 4601, this pair ranks #518,351 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of she's vs shops

Shared letters: hs. Private to "she's": e. Private to "shops": op.

"she's" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "shops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shopshsops · shhops · shopps · shopss · shosp · shpos · sohps · sshops

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "she's" and "shops" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "she's" is a contraction and "shops" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "she's" or "shops"?
"she's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #552 in our English list, against #4,049 for "shops". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "she's" and "shops". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "she's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shops" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #518,351 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "she's" and "shops" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sharps vs shops". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list