sharevsslaveWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: share is a noun, slave is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“share” is a noun and “slave” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,310
“share” frequency rank
#17,563
“slave” frequency rank
51873
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature share slave
Definition Participation. Caractéristique des peuples d’Europe centrale ou orientale dont la langue fait partie du groupe des langues slaves.

Where the eye mixes share and slave

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
share
5 ch
slave

Look-alike desk: share vs slave

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: share is \ʃɛə(ɹ)\ while slave is \slav\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51873, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

share is recorded at frequency rank #34,310, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɛə(ɹ)\. slave is at rank #17,563, tagged as anadj, pronounced \slav\.

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 51873, this pair ranks #151,821 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of share vs slave

Shared letters: aes. Private to "share": hr. Private to "slave": lv.

"share" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "slave" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sharehsare · sahre · shaer · sharre · shhare · shrae · sshare
  • slavelsave · slaev · slavve · sllave · slvae · sslave

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "share" for "slave" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "share" is a noun and "slave" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "share" vs "slave" - which ranks higher?
"slave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,563 in our French list, against #34,310 for "share". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "share" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "slave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,821 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "share" and "slave" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "share vs stase". 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 #151,821 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