warsvswordWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: wars is a verb, word is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3,861
“wars” frequency rank
#8,661
“word” frequency rank
12522
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wars word
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs war kleinste selbstständige bedeutungstragende Einheit der Sprache

Letter map: wars vs word

Shared letters muted; letters that set wars and word apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. wars and word follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
wars
4 ch
word

Role in the sentence - wars and word

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wars is averb and wordanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12522, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wars is recorded at frequency rank #3,861, classified as averb, pronounced […]. word is at rank #8,661, tagged as anoun, pronounced [wɜːd].

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 12522, this pair ranks #1,963,673 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wars vs word

Shared letters: rw. Private to "wars": as. Private to "word": do.

"wars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "word" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wars ← awrs · warrs · warss · wasr · wras · wwars
  • word ← owrd · wodr · wordd · worrd · wrod · wword

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wars" and "word" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wars" is a verb and "word" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wars" or "word"?
"wars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,861 in our German list, against #8,661 for "word". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "wars" vs "word" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "word" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,963,673 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wars" and "word" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Werds vs word". 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 #1,963,673 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list