trickvstripsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#37,104
“trick” frequency rank
#49,411
“trips” frequency rank
86515
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature trick trips
Definition La septième levée et les suivantes du jeu de bridge. Pluriel de trip.

Where the eye mixes trick and trips

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
trick
5 ch
trips

Visual trap between trick and trips

A purely visual mix-up. trick (\tʁik\) and trips (\tʁip\) 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 86515, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

trick is recorded at frequency rank #37,104, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʁik\. trips is at rank #49,411, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tʁip\.

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 86515, this pair ranks #9,599 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of trick vs trips

Shared letters: irt. Private to "trick": ck. Private to "trips": ps.

"trick" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "trips" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • trickrtick · tirck · trcik · tricck · trickk · trikc · trrick · ttrick
  • tripsrtips · tirps · tripps · tripss · trisp · trpis · trrips · ttrips

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "trick" for "trips" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tʁik\ versus \tʁip\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "trick" vs "trips" - which ranks higher?
"trick" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,104 in our French list, against #49,411 for "trips". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "trick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "trips" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,599 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "trick" and "trips" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "trapp vs trips". 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 #9,599 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