Which to use
“ship” and “soap” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,271
- “ship” frequency rank
- #49,703
- “soap” frequency rank
- 68974
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ship | soap |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | navio | sabão |
Where the eye mixes ship and soap
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses ship with soap
A purely visual mix-up. ship (shĭp) and soap (/soʊp/) 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 68974, 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. soap is at rank #49,703, tagged as anoun, pronounced /soʊp/.
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 68974, this pair ranks #4,088 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ship vs soap
Shared letters: ps. Private to "ship": hi. Private to "soap": ao.
"ship" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "soap" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "ship" and "soap" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "ship" vs "soap" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "ship" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "soap" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #4,088 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ship" and "soap" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sau vs soap". 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 #4,088 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.