shopsvsshotsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“shops” and “shots” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,734
“shops” frequency rank
#32,191
“shots” frequency rank
76925
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature shops shots
Definition Pluriel de shop. Pluriel de shot.

Where the eye mixes shops and shots

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
shops
5 ch
shots

Look-alike desk: shops vs shots

A purely visual mix-up. shops (\ʃɔp\) and shots (\ʃɔt\) 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 a single letter - p in “shops” becomes t in “shots”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76925, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shops is recorded at frequency rank #44,734, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃɔp\. shots is at rank #32,191, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʃɔt\.

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 76925, this pair ranks #29,809 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of shops vs shots

Shared letters: hos. Private to "shops": p. Private to "shots": t.

"shops" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "shots" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shopshsops · shhops · shopps · shopss · shosp · shpos · sohps · sshops
  • shotshsots · shhots · shost · shotss · shotts · shtos · sohts · sshots

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "shops" for "shots" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ʃɔp\ versus \ʃɔt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "shops" or "shots" show up more?
"shots" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,191 in our French list, against #44,734 for "shops". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "shops" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shots" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #29,809 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "shops" and "shots" 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 #29,809 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