Which to use
“skill” is a verb and “skins” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,041
- “skill” frequency rank
- #30,376
- “skins” frequency rank
- 69417
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | skill | skins |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Séparer, diviser. | Soirée de jeunes et d’adolescents sans limite. |
Where the eye mixes skill and skins
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. skill and skins follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses skill with skins
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: skill is \ˈskɪl\ while skins is \skinz\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69417, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
skill is recorded at frequency rank #39,041, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈskɪl\. skins is at rank #30,376, tagged as anoun, pronounced \skinz\.
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 69417, this pair ranks #55,195 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of skill vs skins
Shared letters: iks. Private to "skill": l. Private to "skins": n.
"skill" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "skins" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "skill" for "skins" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "skill" or "skins" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "skill" and "skins" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "skill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "skins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #55,195 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "skill" and "skins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "skill vs skull". 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 #55,195 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.