wonvswrongWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: won is a verb, wrong is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#25,404
“won” frequency rank
#26,254
“wrong” frequency rank
51658
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature won wrong
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs win nicht richtig; falsch

Letter map: won vs wrong

Shared letters muted; letters that set won and wrong apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
won
5 ch
wrong

Role in the sentence - won and wrong

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: won is averb and wronganadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51658, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

won is recorded at frequency rank #25,404, classified as averb, pronounced […]. wrong is at rank #26,254, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɹɒŋ].

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 51658, this pair ranks #1,127,110 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of won vs wrong

Shared letters: now. Private to "won": -. Private to "wrong": gr.

"won" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "wrong" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wrongrwong · worng · wrnog · wrogn · wrongg · wronng · wrrong · wwrong

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "won" and "wrong" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "won" is a verb and "wrong" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "won" or "wrong"?
"won" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,404 in our German list, against #26,254 for "wrong". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "won" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wrong" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,127,110 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "won" and "wrong" 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 #1,127,110 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