sheetvsshutWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: sheet is a noun, shut is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sheet” is a noun and “shut” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,793
“sheet” frequency rank
#41,005
“shut” frequency rank
89798
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sheet shut
Definition Drap. Refermer, fermer ce qui était ouvert, fermer.

Letter map: sheet vs shut

Shared letters muted; letters that set sheet and shut apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
sheet
4 ch
shut

Role in the sentence - sheet and shut

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sheet is anoun and shutaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89798, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sheet is recorded at frequency rank #48,793, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃiːt\. shut is at rank #41,005, tagged as averb.

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 89798, this pair ranks #5,428 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sheet vs shut

Shared letters: hst. Private to "sheet": e. Private to "shut": u.

"sheet" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "shut" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sheethseet · sehet · sheett · shet · shete · shheet · ssheet
  • shuthsut · shhut · shtu · shutt · sshut · suht

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sheet" and "shut" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sheet" is a noun and "shut" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "sheet" or "shut"?
"shut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,005 in our French list, against #48,793 for "sheet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "sheet" vs "shut" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sheet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,428 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sheet" and "shut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shut vs suu". 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 #5,428 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