Which to use
“stake” and “steak” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,631
- “stake” frequency rank
- #7,503
- “steak” frequency rank
- 13134
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | stake | steak |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay. | Beefsteak: a slice of beef, broiled or cut for broiling. |
Same sound, different letters: stake vs steak
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.
Homophone desk: stake vs steak
This is the hard kind. stake and steak are pronounced identically (/steɪk/) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13134, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
stake is recorded at frequency rank #5,631, classified as anoun, pronounced /steɪk/. steak is at rank #7,503, tagged as anoun, pronounced /steɪk/.
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 13134, this pair ranks #477,588 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of stake vs steak
Shared letters: aekst. Private to "stake": -. Private to "steak": -.
"stake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "steak" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "stake" for "steak" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "stake" or "steak" show up more?
Useful next steps
"stake" and "steak" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "stake" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "steak" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #477,588 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "stake" and "steak" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sheaf vs steak". 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 #477,588 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.