stumpvsstumpsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,143
“stump” frequency rank
#24,923
“stumps” frequency rank
41066
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stump stumps
Definition The remains of something that has been cut off; especially the remains of a tree, the remains of a limb. close of play (when the stumps are pulled out of the ground by the umpires)

Letter map: stump vs stumps

Shared letters muted; letters that set stump and stumps apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. stump runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against stumps's 6 (CCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
stump
6 ch
stumps

Spelling & dictionary notes on stump vs stumps

stump and stumps are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “stump” sits inside “stumps”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41066, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stump is recorded at frequency rank #16,143, classified as anoun, pronounced /stʌmp/. stumps is at rank #24,923, tagged as anoun.

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 41066, this pair ranks #261,803 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of stump vs stumps

Shared letters: mpstu. Private to "stump": -. Private to "stumps": -.

"stump" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "stumps" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stumpsstump · stmup · sttump · stummp · stumpp · stupm · sutmp · tsump
  • stumpssstumps · stmups · sttumps · stummps · stumpps · stumpss · stumsp · stupms

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "stump" and "stumps" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “stump” sits inside “stumps”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "stump" or "stumps"?
"stump" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,143 in our English list, against #24,923 for "stumps". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "stump" and "stumps". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stump" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stumps" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #261,803 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stump" and "stumps" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stumps vs sump". 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 #261,803 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