flew vs FTW, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“flew” is a verb and “FTW” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,497
“flew” frequency rank: #36,151
“FTW” frequency rank: 41648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	flew	FTW
Definition	simple past of fly	Initialism of for the win.

Letter map: flew vs FTW

Shared letters muted; letters that set flew and FTW apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

flew

3 ch

FTW

Role in the sentence - flew and FTW

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: flew is averb and FTWanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flew is recorded at frequency rank #5,497, classified as averb, pronounced /fluː/. FTW is at rank #36,151, tagged as anadv.

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 41648, this pair ranks #256,338 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of flew vs FTW

Shared letters: fw. Private to "flew": el. Private to "FTW": t.

"flew" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "FTW" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

flew ← felw · fflew · fleww · fllew · flwe · lfew

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "flew" and "FTW" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "flew" is a verb and "FTW" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "flew" vs "FTW" - which ranks higher?

"flew" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,497 in our English list, against #36,151 for "FTW". 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 "flew" and "FTW".

Full dictionary entry for "flew" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "FTW" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #256,338 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"flew" and "FTW" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foh vs FTW". 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 #256,338 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.