shows vs so's, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“shows” is a noun and “so's” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#597
“shows” frequency rank: #38,171
“so's” frequency rank: 38768
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	shows	so's
Definition	plural of show	So that, in order that.

Letter map: shows vs so's

Shared letters muted; letters that set shows and so's apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

shows

4 ch

so's

Role in the sentence - shows and so's

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: shows is anoun and so'sacontraction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shows is recorded at frequency rank #597, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃəʊz/. so's is at rank #38,171, tagged as acontraction.

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 38768, this pair ranks #282,957 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of shows vs so's

Shared letters: os. Private to "shows": hw. Private to "so's": -.

"shows" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "so's" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

shows ← hsows · shhows · shosw · showss · showws · shwos · sohws · sshows

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "shows" for "so's" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "shows" is a noun and "so's" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "shows" or "so's"?

"shows" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #597 in our English list, against #38,171 for "so's". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "shows" vs "so's" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "shows" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "so's" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #282,957 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"shows" and "so's" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "so's vs suds". 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 #282,957 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.