# shell vs smelt

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### shell
*noun · IPA /ʃɛl/ · frequency rank #3,726*
A hard external covering of an animal.

### smelt
*noun · IPA /smɛlt/ · frequency rank #29,468*
Any small anadromous fish of the family Osmeridae, found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and in lakes in North America and northern part of Europe.

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