sitevsstateWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“site” and “state” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#613
“site” frequency rank
#163
“state” frequency rank
776
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature site state
Definition The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position A condition; a set of circumstances applying at any given time.

Where the eye mixes site and state

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
site
5 ch
state

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. site (/saɪt/) and state (/steɪt/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 776, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

site is recorded at frequency rank #613, classified as anoun, pronounced /saɪt/. state is at rank #163, tagged as anoun, pronounced /steɪt/.

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 776, this pair ranks #528,804 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of site vs state

Shared letters: est. Private to "site": i. Private to "state": a.

"site" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "state" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • siteiste · siet · sitte · ssite · stie
  • statesatte · sstate · staet · statte · sttae · sttate · tsate

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "site" and "state" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/saɪt/ versus /steɪt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "site" or "state"?
"state" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #163 in our English list, against #613 for "site". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list