WillowvswillsTell them apart

Quick tell: Willow is a name, wills is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Willow” is a name and “wills” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,703
“Willow” frequency rank
#27,136
“wills” frequency rank
72839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Willow wills
Definition englischer weiblicher Vorname 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs will

Letter map: Willow vs wills

Shared letters muted; letters that set Willow and wills apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
Willow
5 ch
wills

Role in the sentence - Willow and wills

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Willow is aname and willsaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Willow is recorded at frequency rank #45,703, classified as aname, pronounced [ˈwɪləʊ]. wills is at rank #27,136, 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 72839, this pair ranks #377,144 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Willow vs wills

Shared letters: ilw. Private to "Willow": o. Private to "wills": s.

"Willow" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "wills" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Willowiwllow · willoww · willwo · wilolw · wilow · wlilow · wwillow
  • willsiwlls · willss · wils · wilsl · wlils · wwills

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Willow" and "wills" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Willow" is a name and "wills" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Willow" or "wills"?
"wills" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,136 in our German list, against #45,703 for "Willow". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "Willow" and "wills". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Willow" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wills" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #377,144 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Willow" and "wills" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Willow vs window". 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 #377,144 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