whichvswhiteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: which is a pronoun, white is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“which” is a pronoun and “white” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,204
“which” frequency rank
#4,316
“white” frequency rank
16520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature which white
Definition welche? weiß

Letter map: which vs white

Shared letters muted; letters that set which and white apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
which
5 ch
white

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: which is apronoun and whiteanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

which is recorded at frequency rank #12,204, classified as apron, pronounced […]. white is at rank #4,316, tagged as anadj, pronounced [waɪt].

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 16520, this pair ranks #1,935,175 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of which vs white

Shared letters: hiw. Private to "which": c. Private to "white": et.

"which" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "white" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whichhwich · whcih · whhich · whicch · whichh · whihc · wihch · wwhich
  • whitehwite · whhite · whiet · whitte · whtie · wihte · wwhite

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "which" and "white" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "which" is a pronoun and "white" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "which" or "white"?
"white" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,316 in our German list, against #12,204 for "which". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "which" and "white". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "which" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "white" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,935,175 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "which" and "white" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs which". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list