Which to use
“stair” and “stasis” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,786
- “stair” frequency rank
- #29,480
- “stasis” frequency rank
- 50266
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | stair | stasis |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A single step in a staircase. | A slackening or arrest of the blood current, due not to a lessening of the heart’s beat, but to some abnormal resistance of the capillary walls. |
Where the eye mixes stair and stasis
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. stair runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against stasis's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses stair with stasis
A purely visual mix-up. stair (/stɛɚ/) and stasis (/ˈsteɪsɪs/) 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 50266, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
stair is recorded at frequency rank #20,786, classified as anoun, pronounced /stɛɚ/. stasis is at rank #29,480, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsteɪsɪs/.
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 50266, this pair ranks #175,852 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of stair vs stasis
Shared letters: aist. Private to "stair": r. Private to "stasis": -.
"stair" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "stasis" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "stair" and "stasis" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "stair" or "stasis"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "stair" and "stasis" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "stair" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stasis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #175,852 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "stair" and "stasis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "staid vs stasis". 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 #175,852 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.