Which to use
“draft” and “draught” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,438
- “draft” frequency rank
- #26,069
- “draught” frequency rank
- 28507
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | draft | draught |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A current of air, usually coming into a room or vehicle. | Alternative form of draft in some of its senses. |
Same sound, different letters: draft vs draught
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - draft and draught
This is the hard kind. draft and draught are pronounced identically (/dɹɑːft/) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28507, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
draft is recorded at frequency rank #2,438, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɹɑːft/. draught is at rank #26,069, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɹɑːft/.
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 28507, this pair ranks #370,509 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of draft vs draught
Shared letters: adrt. Private to "draft": f. Private to "draught": ghu.
"draft" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "draught" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "draft" and "draught" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "draft" or "draught"?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "draft" / "draught". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "draft" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "draught" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #370,509 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "draft" and "draught" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "draft vs Drago". 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 #370,509 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.