shipvsshotWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“ship” and “shot” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#38,970
“ship” frequency rank
#25,812
“shot” frequency rank
64782
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ship shot
Definition Barco. Acción o efecto de beber de un único sorbo el contenido de bebida alcohólica que quepa en un chupito.

Where the eye mixes ship and shot

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. ship and shot follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
ship
4 ch
shot

Look-alike desk: ship vs shot

A purely visual mix-up. ship (/ʃɪp/) and shot ([ˈʃot̪]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ship is recorded at frequency rank #38,970, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃɪp/. shot is at rank #25,812, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃot̪].

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 64782, this pair ranks #44,595 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ship vs shot

Shared letters: hs. Private to "ship": ip. Private to "shot": ot.

"ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "shot" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ship ← hsip · shhip · shipp · shpi · sihp · sship
  • shot ← hsot · shhot · shott · shto · soht · sshot

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ship" and "shot" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ʃɪp/ versus [ˈʃot̪]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "ship" or "shot" show up more?
"shot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,812 in our Spanish list, against #38,970 for "ship". 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 "ship" and "shot" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ship" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shot" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #44,595 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ship" and "shot" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sei vs ship". 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 #44,595 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list