Which to use
“shan” and “ship” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,590
- “shan” frequency rank
- #23,693
- “ship” frequency rank
- 60283
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shan | ship |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Langue de la famille tai-kadai parlée en Birmanie, en Chine et en Thaïlande par les Shans. | Couple principalement non officiel ou non canonique entre des personnages. |
Where the eye mixes shan and ship
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses shan with ship
A purely visual mix-up. shan (\ʃan\) and ship (\ʃip\) 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 60283, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shan is recorded at frequency rank #36,590, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃan\. ship is at rank #23,693, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃip\.
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 60283, this pair ranks #98,465 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of shan vs ship
Shared letters: hs. Private to "shan": an. Private to "ship": ip.
"shan" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "shan" and "ship" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "shan" or "ship"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "shan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ship" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #98,465 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "shan" and "ship" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shan vs swag". 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 #98,465 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.