stakevsstoreConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#5,631
“stake” frequency rank
#1,030
“store” frequency rank
6661
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stake store
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. A place where items may be accumulated or routinely kept.

Where the eye mixes stake and store

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

5 ch
stake
5 ch
store

Look-alike desk: stake vs store

A purely visual mix-up. stake (/steɪk/) and store (/stɔː/) 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 6661, 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/. store is at rank #1,030, tagged as anoun, pronounced /stɔː/.

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 6661, this pair ranks #510,526 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of stake vs store

Shared letters: est. Private to "stake": ak. Private to "store": or.

"stake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "store" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stakesatke · sstake · staek · stakke · stkae · sttake · tsake
  • storesotre · sstore · stoer · storre · stroe · sttore · tsore

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "stake" and "store" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/steɪk/ versus /stɔː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "stake" or "store" show up more?
"store" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,030 in our English list, against #5,631 for "stake". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stake" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "store" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #510,526 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stake" and "store" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stake vs staph". 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 #510,526 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