Which to use
“ship” and “shops” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #23,693
- “ship” frequency rank
- #44,734
- “shops” frequency rank
- 68427
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ship | shops |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Couple principalement non officiel ou non canonique entre des personnages. | Pluriel de shop. |
Where the eye mixes ship and shops
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. ship runs 4 letters (CCVC) against shops's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses ship with shops
A purely visual mix-up. ship (\ʃip\) and shops (\ʃɔp\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68427, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ship is recorded at frequency rank #23,693, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃip\. 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 68427, this pair ranks #59,248 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ship vs shops
Shared letters: hps. Private to "ship": i. Private to "shops": o.
"ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "shops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ship" for "shops" ever safe?
Which is more common, "ship" or "shops"?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "ship" 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 #59,248 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ship" 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 #59,248 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.