whiskyvswonWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#11,569
“whisky” frequency rank
#25,404
“won” frequency rank
36973
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature whisky won
Definition Whisky Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs win

Letter map: whisky vs won

Shared letters muted; letters that set whisky and won apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

6 ch
whisky
3 ch
won

Role in the sentence - whisky and won

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: whisky is anoun and wonaverb. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36973, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

whisky is recorded at frequency rank #11,569, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. won is at rank #25,404, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 36973, this pair ranks #1,602,002 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of whisky vs won

Shared letters: w. Private to "whisky": hiksy. Private to "won": no.

"whisky" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "won" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whiskyhwisky · whhisky · whiksy · whiskky · whiskyy · whissky · whisyk · whsiky

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "whisky" for "won" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "whisky" is a noun and "won" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "whisky" vs "won" - which ranks higher?
"whisky" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,569 in our German list, against #25,404 for "won". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "whisky" vs "won" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "whisky" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "won" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,602,002 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "whisky" and "won" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs won". 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 #1,602,002 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