chopevsshopsConfusable pair

Which to use

“chope” and “shops” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#24,901
“chope” frequency rank
#44,734
“shops” frequency rank
69635
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature chope shops
Definition Grand récipient cylindrique à anse pour boire de la bière. Pluriel de shop.

Same sound, different letters: chope vs shops

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. chope (CCVCV) and shops (CCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
chope
5 ch
shops

Homophone desk: chope vs shops

This is the hard kind. chope and shops are pronounced identically (\ʃɔp\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69635, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

chope is recorded at frequency rank #24,901, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɔp\. shops is at rank #44,734, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃɔp\.

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 69635, this pair ranks #54,392 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of chope vs shops

Shared letters: hop. Private to "chope": ce. Private to "shops": s.

"chope" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "shops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • chope ← cchope · chhope · choep · chpoe · cohpe · hcope
  • shops ← hsops · shhops · shopps · shopss · shosp · shpos · sohps · sshops

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "chope" and "shops" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʃɔp\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "chope" vs "shops" - which ranks higher?
"chope" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,901 in our French list, against #44,734 for "shops". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "chope" / "shops". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "chope" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shops" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,392 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "chope" and "shops" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shops vs sirops". 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 #54,392 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list