brothvsbrowsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“broth” and “brows” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,309
“broth” frequency rank
#18,508
“brows” frequency rank
35817
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature broth brows
Definition Water in which food (meat, vegetable, etc.) has been boiled. plural of brow

Where the eye mixes broth and brows

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

5 ch
broth
5 ch
brows

Visual trap between broth and brows

A purely visual mix-up. broth (/bɹɔθ/) and brows (/bɹaʊz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35817, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

broth is recorded at frequency rank #17,309, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɹɔθ/. brows is at rank #18,508, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɹaʊz/.

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 35817, this pair ranks #308,646 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of broth vs brows

Shared letters: bor. Private to "broth": ht. Private to "brows": sw.

"broth" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "brows" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brothbbroth · borth · broht · brothh · brotth · brroth · brtoh · rboth
  • browsbbrows · borws · brosw · browss · browws · brrows · brwos · rbows

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "broth" and "brows" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/bɹɔθ/ versus /bɹaʊz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "broth" or "brows"?
"broth" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,309 in our English list, against #18,508 for "brows". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "broth" and "brows" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "broth" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brows" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #308,646 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "broth" and "brows" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "BRICS vs brows". 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 #308,646 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