Which to use
“knock” is an onomatopoeia and “known” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,971
- “knock” frequency rank
- #47,995
- “known” frequency rank
- 90966
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | knock | known |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Toc, onomatopée servant à exprimer un bruit sec, un choc. | Connu. |
Where the eye mixes knock and known
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. knock and known follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between knock and known
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: knock is \nɒk\ while known is \ˈnoʊn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (onomatopoeia vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90966, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
knock is recorded at frequency rank #42,971, classified as anonomatopoeia, pronounced \nɒk\. known is at rank #47,995, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈnoʊn\.
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 90966, this pair ranks #4,280 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of knock vs known
Shared letters: kno. Private to "knock": c. Private to "known": w.
"knock" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "knock" for "known" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "knock" or "known" show up more?
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 "knock" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "known" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #4,280 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "knock" and "known" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "known vs kwon". 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 #4,280 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.