Which to use
“sill” and “spills” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,086
- “sill” frequency rank
- #18,436
- “spills” frequency rank
- 47522
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sill | spills |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A breast wall; window breast; horizontal brink which forms the base of a window. | plural of spill |
Where the eye mixes sill and spills
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: sill vs spills
A purely visual mix-up. sill (/sɪl/) and spills (/spɪlz/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47522, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sill is recorded at frequency rank #29,086, classified as anoun, pronounced /sɪl/. spills is at rank #18,436, tagged as anoun, pronounced /spɪlz/.
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 47522, this pair ranks #201,677 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sill vs spills
Shared letters: ils. Private to "sill": -. Private to "spills": p.
"sill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "spills" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sill" and "spills" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "sill" vs "spills" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "sill" and "spills" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "sill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "spills" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #201,677 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sill" and "spills" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sif vs sill". 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 #201,677 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.