witvswithWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: wit is a adverb, with is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wit” is an adverb and “with” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,706
“wit” frequency rank
#2,225
“with” frequency rank
47931
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wit with
Definition von weißer Farbe mit

Where the eye mixes wit and with

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
wit
4 ch
with

Look-alike desk: wit vs with

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wit is [wɪt] while with is [wɪð]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “wit” sits inside “with”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47931, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wit is recorded at frequency rank #45,706, classified as anadv, pronounced [wɪt]. with is at rank #2,225, tagged as aprep, pronounced [wɪð].

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 47931, this pair ranks #1,266,882 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wit vs with

Shared letters: itw. Private to "wit": -. Private to "with": h.

"wit" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "with" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • withiwth · wiht · withh · witth · wtih · wwith

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wit" and "with" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wit" is an adverb and "with" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wit" vs "with" - which ranks higher?
"with" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,225 in our German list, against #45,706 for "wit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "with" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,266,882 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wit" and "with" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "went vs wit". 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 #1,266,882 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