blowervsboweTell them apart

Quick tell: blower is a noun, bowe is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#20,300
“blower” frequency rank
#42,557
“bowe” frequency rank
62857
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blower bowe
Definition A person who blows. Obsolete spelling of bow.

Letter map: blower vs bowe

Shared letters muted; letters that set blower and bowe apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. blower runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against bowe's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
blower
4 ch
bowe

Role in the sentence - blower and bowe

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: blower is anoun and boweaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blower is recorded at frequency rank #20,300, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbləʊ.ə/. bowe is at rank #42,557, tagged as averb.

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 62857, this pair ranks #86,164 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of blower vs bowe

Shared letters: beow. Private to "blower": lr. Private to "bowe": -.

"blower" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "bowe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blower ← bblower · bllower · bloewr · blowerr · blowre · blowwer · blwoer · lbower
  • bowe ← bbowe · boew · bowwe · bwoe · obwe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "blower" for "bowe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "blower" is a noun and "bowe" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "blower" or "bowe"?
"blower" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,300 in our English list, against #42,557 for "bowe". 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 "blower" and "bowe".

  • Full dictionary entry for "blower" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bowe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #86,164 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blower" and "bowe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bowe vs bowyer". 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 #86,164 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list