storevsstoryWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,030
“store” frequency rank
#341
“story” frequency rank
1371
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature store story
Definition A place where items may be accumulated or routinely kept. An account of real or fictional events.

Where the eye mixes store and story

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
store
5 ch
story

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. store (/stɔː/) and story (/ˈstɔː.ɹi/) 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 a single letter - e in “store” becomes y in “story”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1371, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

store is recorded at frequency rank #1,030, classified as anoun, pronounced /stɔː/. story is at rank #341, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈstɔː.ɹi/.

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 1371, this pair ranks #527,572 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of store vs story

Shared letters: orst. Private to "store": e. Private to "story": y.

"store" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "story" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • storesotre · sstore · stoer · storre · stroe · sttore · tsore
  • storysotry · sstory · storry · storyy · stoyr · stroy · sttory · tsory

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "store" and "story" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/stɔː/ versus /ˈstɔː.ɹi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "store" or "story"?
"story" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #341 in our English list, against #1,030 for "store". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "store" and "story". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "store" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "story" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #527,572 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "store" and "story" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "store vs stover". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list