winningvsWSTell them apart

Quick tell: winning is a verb, WS is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“winning” is a verb and “WS” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,403
“winning” frequency rank
#21,852
“WS” frequency rank
68255
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature winning WS
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs win Wintersemester

Letter map: winning vs WS

Shared letters muted; letters that set winning and WS apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

7 ch
winning
2 ch
WS

Role in the sentence - winning and WS

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: winning is averb and WSanabbrev. On the page they differ by 5 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68255, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

winning is recorded at frequency rank #46,403, classified as averb, pronounced […]. WS is at rank #21,852, tagged as anabbrev, 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 68255, this pair ranks #513,708 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of winning vs WS

Shared letters: w. Private to "winning": gin. Private to "WS": s.

"winning" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "WS" · 2 letters · shape CC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • winningiwnning · wining · wininng · winnign · winningg · winninng · winnnig · wnining

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "winning" and "WS" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "winning" is a verb and "WS" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "winning" or "WS"?
"WS" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,852 in our German list, against #46,403 for "winning". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "winning" and "WS".

  • Full dictionary entry for "winning" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "WS" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #513,708 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "winning" and "WS" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs winning". 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 #513,708 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