smokevsstokesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#37,561
“smoke” frequency rank
#37,076
“stokes” frequency rank
74637
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature smoke stokes
Definition Bille à jouer. Unité de mesure de la viscosité cinématique.

Where the eye mixes smoke and stokes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. smoke runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against stokes's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
smoke
6 ch
stokes

Look-alike desk: smoke vs stokes

A purely visual mix-up. smoke (\smok\) and stokes (\stoks\) 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 74637, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

smoke is recorded at frequency rank #37,561, classified as anoun, pronounced \smok\. stokes is at rank #37,076, tagged as anoun, pronounced \stoks\.

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 74637, this pair ranks #36,530 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of smoke vs stokes

Shared letters: ekos. Private to "smoke": m. Private to "stokes": t.

"smoke" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "stokes" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • smoke ← msoke · smkoe · smmoke · smoek · smokke · somke · ssmoke
  • stokes ← sotkes · sstokes · stkoes · stoeks · stokess · stokkes · stokse · sttokes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "smoke" and "stokes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\smok\ versus \stoks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "smoke" vs "stokes" - which ranks higher?
"stokes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,076 in our French list, against #37,561 for "smoke". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "smoke" and "stokes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "smoke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stokes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,530 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "smoke" and "stokes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seok vs smoke". 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 #36,530 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