Which to use
“shock” is a noun and “shown” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,260
- “shock” frequency rank
- #1,354
- “shown” frequency rank
- 4614
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shock | shown |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A sudden, heavy impact. | past participle of show |
Where the eye mixes shock and shown
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: shock is /ʃɒk/ while shown is /ʃəʊn/. 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 4614, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shock is recorded at frequency rank #3,260, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃɒk/. shown is at rank #1,354, tagged as averb, pronounced /ʃəʊn/.
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 4614, this pair ranks #518,300 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of shock vs shown
Shared letters: hos. Private to "shock": ck. Private to "shown": nw.
"shock" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "shown" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC