Which to use
“thrush” and “thrust” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #35,985
- “thrush” frequency rank
- #8,871
- “thrust” frequency rank
- 44856
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thrush | thrust |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any of numerous species of songbirds of the cosmopolitan family Turdidae, such as the song thrush, mistle thrush, bluebird, and American robin. | An attack made by moving the sword parallel to its length and landing with the point. |
Where the eye mixes thrush and thrust
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: thrush vs thrust
A purely visual mix-up. thrush (/θɹʌʃ/) and thrust (/θɹʌst/) 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 - h in “thrush” becomes t in “thrust”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44856, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thrush is recorded at frequency rank #35,985, classified as anoun, pronounced /θɹʌʃ/. thrust is at rank #8,871, tagged as anoun, pronounced /θɹʌst/.
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 44856, this pair ranks #226,686 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of thrush vs thrust
Shared letters: hrstu. Private to "thrush": -. Private to "thrust": -.
"thrush" · 6 letters · shape CCCVCC · "thrust" · 6 letters · shape CCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "thrush" for "thrust" ever safe?
Which is more common, "thrush" or "thrust"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "thrush" and "thrust" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "thrush" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thrust" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #226,686 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thrush" and "thrust" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thrush vs torus". 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 #226,686 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.