Which to use
“ship” is a noun and “show” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,254
- “ship” frequency rank
- #199
- “show” frequency rank
- 1453
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ship | show |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A water-borne vessel generally larger than a boat. | To display, to have somebody see (something). |
Where the eye mixes ship and show
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ship is /ʃɪp/ while show is /ʃəʊ/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1453, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ship is recorded at frequency rank #1,254, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃɪp/. show is at rank #199, tagged as averb, pronounced /ʃəʊ/.
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 1453, this pair ranks #527,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of ship vs show
Shared letters: hs. Private to "ship": ip. Private to "show": ow.
"ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "show" · 4 letters · shape CCVC