ThaisvsThamesTell them apart

Quick tell: Thais is a noun, Thames is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Thais” is a noun and “Thames” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,943
“Thais” frequency rank
#10,780
“Thames” frequency rank
53723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Thais Thames
Definition plural of Thai A river in southern England, flowing 336 km (209 mi.) from Gloucestershire, through Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Greater London, and between Essex and Kent to the Thames Estuary and North Sea.

Letter map: Thais vs Thames

Shared letters muted; letters that set Thais and Thames apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Thais runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against Thames's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Thais
6 ch
Thames

Grammar separator: Thais vs Thames

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Thais is anoun and Thamesaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Thais is recorded at frequency rank #42,943, classified as anoun. Thames is at rank #10,780, tagged as aname, pronounced /tɛmz/.

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 53723, this pair ranks #146,708 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Thais vs Thames

Shared letters: ahst. Private to "Thais": i. Private to "Thames": em.

"Thais" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "Thames" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Thais ← htais · tahis · thaiss · thasi · thhais · thias · tthais
  • Thames ← htames · tahmes · thaems · thamess · thammes · thamse · thhames · thmaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Thais" for "Thames" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Thais" is a noun and "Thames" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Thais" or "Thames" show up more?
"Thames" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,780 in our English list, against #42,943 for "Thais". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Thais" vs "Thames" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Thais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Thames" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,708 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Thais" and "Thames" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Thais vs theism". 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 #146,708 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