showvsshuiTell them apart

Quick tell: show is a noun, shui is a typographic variant, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“show” is a noun and “shui” is a typographic variant - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,852
“show” frequency rank
#34,752
“shui” frequency rank
37604
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature show shui
Definition Spectacle. Orthographe par contrainte typographique par système h de ŝui.

Where the eye mixes show and shui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
show
4 ch
shui

Look-alike desk: show vs shui

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: show is \ʃo\ while shui is \ˈʃu.i\. 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 typographic variant), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37604, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

show is recorded at frequency rank #2,852, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʃo\. shui is at rank #34,752, tagged as atypographic variant, pronounced \ˈʃu.i\.

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 37604, this pair ranks #261,327 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of show vs shui

Shared letters: hs. Private to "show": ow. Private to "shui": iu.

"show" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "shui" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • showhsow · shhow · showw · shwo · sohw · sshow
  • shuihsui · shhui · shiu · sshui · suhi

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "show" and "shui" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "show" is a noun and "shui" a typographic variant, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "show" or "shui" show up more?
"show" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,852 in our French list, against #34,752 for "shui". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "show" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #261,327 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "show" and "shui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shui 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 #261,327 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