spoofvsstoopWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#25,592
“spoof” frequency rank
#24,326
“stoop” frequency rank
49918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature spoof stoop
Definition An act of deception; a hoax; a joking prank. A stooping, bent position of the body.

Where the eye mixes spoof and stoop

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

5 ch
spoof
5 ch
stoop

Visual trap between spoof and stoop

A purely visual mix-up. spoof (/spuːf/) and stoop (/stuːp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

spoof is recorded at frequency rank #25,592, classified as anoun, pronounced /spuːf/. stoop is at rank #24,326, tagged as anoun, pronounced /stuːp/.

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 49918, this pair ranks #179,069 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of spoof vs stoop

Shared letters: ops. Private to "spoof": f. Private to "stoop": t.

"spoof" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "stoop" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • spoofpsoof · sopof · spof · spofo · spooff · sppoof · sspoof
  • stoopsotop · sstoop · stoopp · stopo · sttoop · tsoop

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "spoof" for "stoop" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/spuːf/ versus /stuːp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "spoof" or "stoop"?
"stoop" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,326 in our English list, against #25,592 for "spoof". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "spoof" and "stoop" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "spoof" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stoop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #179,069 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "spoof" and "stoop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stoop vs stooped". 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 #179,069 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list