strayvssuraWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#10,614
“stray” frequency rank
#49,659
“sura” frequency rank
60273
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stray sura
Definition Any domestic animal that lacks an enclosure, proper place, or company, but that instead wanders at large or is lost; an estray. Any of the 114 chapters of the Quran.

Where the eye mixes stray and sura

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

5 ch
stray
4 ch
sura

Why the eye confuses stray with sura

A purely visual mix-up. stray (/stɹeɪ/) and sura (/ˈsʊə.ɹə/) 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 60273, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stray is recorded at frequency rank #10,614, classified as anoun, pronounced /stɹeɪ/. sura is at rank #49,659, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsʊə.ɹə/.

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 60273, this pair ranks #101,138 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of stray vs sura

Shared letters: ars. Private to "stray": ty. Private to "sura": u.

"stray" · 5 letters · shape CCCVV  ·  "sura" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • straysrtay · sstray · stary · strayy · strray · strya · sttray · tsray
  • surasrua · ssura · suar · surra · usra

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "stray" for "sura" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/stɹeɪ/ versus /ˈsʊə.ɹə/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "stray" or "sura" show up more?
"stray" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,614 in our English list, against #49,659 for "sura". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "stray" and "sura" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stray" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sura" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #101,138 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stray" and "sura" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "suds vs sura". 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 #101,138 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