ship vs shun, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ship” is a noun and “shun” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,271
“ship” frequency rank: #33,617
“shun” frequency rank: 52888
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ship	shun
Definition	navio	evitar

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set ship and shun apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

ship

4 ch

shun

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ship is shĭp while shun is /ʃʌn/. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52888, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ship is recorded at frequency rank #19,271, classified as anoun, pronounced shĭp. shun is at rank #33,617, tagged as averb, pronounced /ʃʌn/.

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 52888, this pair ranks #12,418 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ship vs shun

Shared letters: hs. Private to "ship": ip. Private to "shun": nu.

"ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "shun" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

ship ← hsip · shhip · shipp · shpi · sihp · sship
shun ← hsun · shhun · shnu · shunn · sshun · suhn

Frequency comparison

ship#19,271

shun#33,617

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ship" and "shun" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ship" is a noun and "shun" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "ship" or "shun"?

"ship" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,271 in our Portuguese list, against #33,617 for "shun". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering ship vs shun

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “ship”; for a verb, it's “shun”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “ship” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable