Which to use
“shops” and “stops” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,049
- “shops” frequency rank
- #3,657
- “stops” frequency rank
- 7706
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shops | stops |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of shop | plural of stop |
Where the eye mixes shops and stops
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: shops vs stops
A purely visual mix-up. shops (/ʃɑps/) and stops (/stɒps/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - h in “shops” becomes t in “stops”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shops is recorded at frequency rank #4,049, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃɑps/. stops is at rank #3,657, tagged as anoun, pronounced /stɒps/.
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 7706, this pair ranks #505,937 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of shops vs stops
Shared letters: ops. Private to "shops": h. Private to "stops": t.
"shops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "stops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "shops" and "stops" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "shops" vs "stops" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "shops" and "stops" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "shops" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stops" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #505,937 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "shops" and "stops" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "staph vs stops". 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 #505,937 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.