Which to use
“farrow” and “furrow” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #31,554
- “farrow” frequency rank
- #48,758
- “furrow” frequency rank
- 80312
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | farrow | furrow |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A litter of piglets. | Any trench, channel, or groove; often found on wood or metal. |
Where the eye mixes farrow and furrow
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. farrow and furrow follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between farrow and furrow
A purely visual mix-up. farrow (/ˈfæɹəʊ/) and furrow (/ˈfʌɹoʊ/) 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 a single letter - a in “farrow” becomes u in “furrow”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80312, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
farrow is recorded at frequency rank #31,554, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfæɹəʊ/. furrow is at rank #48,758, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfʌɹoʊ/.
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 80312, this pair ranks #20,074 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of farrow vs furrow
Shared letters: forw. Private to "farrow": a. Private to "furrow": u.
"farrow" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "furrow" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "farrow" and "furrow" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "farrow" or "furrow"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "farrow" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "furrow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #20,074 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "farrow" and "furrow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faro vs farrow". 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 #20,074 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.