Which to use
“tailor” and “tails” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,873
- “tailor” frequency rank
- #11,622
- “tails” frequency rank
- 24495
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tailor | tails |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person who makes, repairs, or alters clothes professionally, especially suits and men's clothing. | plural of tail |
Where the eye mixes tailor and tails
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between tailor and tails
A purely visual mix-up. tailor (/ˈteɪlɚ/) and tails (/teɪlz/) 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 24495, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tailor is recorded at frequency rank #12,873, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈteɪlɚ/. tails is at rank #11,622, tagged as anoun, pronounced /teɪlz/.
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 24495, this pair ranks #401,494 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of tailor vs tails
Shared letters: ailt. Private to "tailor": or. Private to "tails": s.
"tailor" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "tails" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "tailor" and "tails" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "tailor" or "tails"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "tailor" and "tails" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "tailor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tails" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #401,494 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tailor" and "tails" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tailor vs trainor". 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 #401,494 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.