Which to use
“spud” and “sud” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #42,419
- “spud” frequency rank
- #37,717
- “sud” frequency rank
- 80136
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | spud | sud |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A potato. | A bubble of lather or foam (the singular of suds). |
Where the eye mixes spud and sud
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. spud runs 4 letters (CCVC) against sud's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between spud and sud
A purely visual mix-up. spud (/spʌd/) and sud (/sʌd/) 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 80136, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
spud is recorded at frequency rank #42,419, classified as anoun, pronounced /spʌd/. sud is at rank #37,717, tagged as anoun, pronounced /sʌd/.
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 80136, this pair ranks #20,508 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of spud vs sud
Shared letters: dsu. Private to "spud": p. Private to "sud": -.
"spud" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "sud" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- spud ← psud · spdu · sppud · spudd · sspud · supd
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "spud" and "sud" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "spud" or "sud"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "spud" and "sud" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "spud" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sud" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #20,508 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "spud" and "sud" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "spud 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 #20,508 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.