Which to use
“showy” is an adjective and “sown” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,687
- “showy” frequency rank
- #30,976
- “sown” frequency rank
- 68663
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | showy | sown |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Calling attention; flashy; standing out to the eye. | past participle of sow |
Where the eye mixes showy and sown
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. showy runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against sown's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between showy and sown
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: showy is /ˈʃəʊ.i/ while sown is /soʊn/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68663, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
showy is recorded at frequency rank #37,687, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈʃəʊ.i/. sown is at rank #30,976, tagged as averb, pronounced /soʊn/.
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 68663, this pair ranks #57,878 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of showy vs sown
Shared letters: osw. Private to "showy": hy. Private to "sown": n.
"showy" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "sown" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "showy" for "sown" ever safe?
Frequency check: "showy" vs "sown" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "showy" and "sown" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "showy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sown" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #57,878 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "showy" and "sown" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soca vs sown". 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 #57,878 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.