Which to use
“shill” and “shits” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #42,892
- “shill” frequency rank
- #12,326
- “shits” frequency rank
- 55218
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shill | shits |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person paid to endorse a product while pretending to be impartial. | plural of shit |
Where the eye mixes shill and shits
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. shill and shits follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: shill vs shits
A purely visual mix-up. shill (/ʃɪl/) and shits (/ʃɪts/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55218, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shill is recorded at frequency rank #42,892, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃɪl/. shits is at rank #12,326, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ʃɪts/.
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 55218, this pair ranks #135,255 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of shill vs shits
Shared letters: his. Private to "shill": l. Private to "shits": t.
"shill" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "shits" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "shill" and "shits" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "shill" or "shits" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "shill" and "shits" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "shill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "shits" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #135,255 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "shill" and "shits" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shill vs spiel". 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 #135,255 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.