Which to use
“bow” and “brow” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,287
- “bow” frequency rank
- #13,874
- “brow” frequency rank
- 18161
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bow | brow |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A weapon made of a curved piece of wood or other flexible material whose ends are connected by a string, used for shooting arrows. | The bony ridge over the eyes, upon which the eyebrows are located. |
Where the eye mixes bow and brow
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between bow and brow
A purely visual mix-up. bow (/bəʊ/) and brow (/bɹaʊ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18161, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bow is recorded at frequency rank #4,287, classified as anoun, pronounced /bəʊ/. brow is at rank #13,874, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɹaʊ/.
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 18161, this pair ranks #446,750 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of bow vs brow
Shared letters: bow. Private to "bow": -. Private to "brow": r.
"bow" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "brow" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- brow ← bbrow · borw · broww · brrow · brwo · rbow
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bow" for "brow" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "bow" or "brow" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "bow" and "brow" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bow" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "brow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #446,750 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bow" and "brow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "BRIC vs brow". 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 #446,750 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.