won vs Wu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#25,404
“won” frequency rank: #15,270
“Wu” frequency rank: 40674
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	won	Wu
Definition	Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs win	chinesische Sprache, die vor allem in Shanghai und den Provinzen Zhejiang und Jiangsu gesprochen wird

Letter map: won vs Wu

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

3 ch

won

2 ch

Grammar separator: won vs Wu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: won is averb and Wuanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

won is recorded at frequency rank #25,404, classified as averb, pronounced […]. Wu is at rank #15,270, tagged as anoun, 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 40674, this pair ranks #1,501,672 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of won vs Wu

Shared letters: w. Private to "won": no. Private to "Wu": u.

"won" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "Wu" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "won" and "Wu" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "won" is a verb and "Wu" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "won" or "Wu" show up more?

"Wu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,270 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 "won" vs "Wu" 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 "Wu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,501,672 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"won" and "Wu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs won". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,501,672 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.