shipvssixWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#38,970
“ship” frequency rank
#20,832
“six” frequency rank
59802
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ship six
Definition Barco. Palabra clave radiofónica del ICAO y NATO para la cifra 6.

Where the eye mixes ship and six

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
ship
3 ch
six

Look-alike desk: ship vs six

A purely visual mix-up. ship (/ʃɪp/) and six ([ˈsɪks]) 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 59802, 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/. six is at rank #20,832, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈsɪks].

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 59802, this pair ranks #61,288 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ship vs six

Shared letters: is. Private to "ship": hp. Private to "six": x.

"ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "six" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shiphsip · shhip · shipp · shpi · sihp · sship

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ship" and "six" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ʃɪp/ versus [ˈsɪks]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "ship" or "six" show up more?
"six" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,832 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.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ship" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "six" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,288 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ship" and "six" 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 #61,288 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