Which to use
“show” is a verb and “sow” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #199
- “show” frequency rank
- #17,722
- “sow” frequency rank
- 17921
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | show | sow |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To display, to have somebody see (something). | A female pig. |
Where the eye mixes show and sow
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: show is /ʃəʊ/ while sow is /saʊ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
show is recorded at frequency rank #199, classified as averb, pronounced /ʃəʊ/. sow is at rank #17,722, tagged as anoun, pronounced /saʊ/.
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 17921, this pair ranks #448,311 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of show vs sow
Shared letters: osw. Private to "show": h. Private to "sow": -.
"show" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "sow" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- show ← hsow · shhow · showw · shwo · sohw · sshow