Which to use
“skins” and “sting” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #30,376
- “skins” frequency rank
- #38,050
- “sting” frequency rank
- 68426
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | skins | sting |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Soirée de jeunes et d’adolescents sans limite. | Piqûre (d'insecte). |
Where the eye mixes skins and sting
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. skins and sting follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between skins and sting
A purely visual mix-up. skins (\skinz\) and sting (\stɪŋ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68426, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
skins is recorded at frequency rank #30,376, classified as anoun, pronounced \skinz\. sting is at rank #38,050, tagged as anoun, pronounced \stɪŋ\.
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 68426, this pair ranks #59,253 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of skins vs sting
Shared letters: ins. Private to "skins": k. Private to "sting": gt.
"skins" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "sting" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "skins" for "sting" ever safe?
Which is more common, "skins" or "sting"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "skins" and "sting" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "skins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #59,253 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "skins" and "sting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sind vs sting". 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 #59,253 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.