Which to use
“oar” is a noun and “ours” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,347
- “oar” frequency rank
- #5,527
- “ours” frequency rank
- 38874
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | oar | ours |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A type of lever used to propel a boat, having a flat blade at one end and a handle at the other, and pivoted in a rowlock atop the gunwale, whereby a rower seated in the boat and pulling the handle can pass the blade through the water by repeated strokes against the water's resistance, thus moving the boat. | That or those belonging to us. |
Where the eye mixes oar and ours
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. oar runs 3 letters (VVC) against ours's 4 (VVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses oar with ours
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: oar is /ɔː/ while ours is /ˈaʊəz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38874, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
oar is recorded at frequency rank #33,347, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɔː/. ours is at rank #5,527, tagged as apron, pronounced /ˈaʊəz/.
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 38874, this pair ranks #281,907 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of oar vs ours
Shared letters: or. Private to "oar": a. Private to "ours": su.
"oar" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "ours" · 4 letters · shape VVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- ours ← orus · ourrs · ourss · ousr · uors
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "oar" for "ours" ever safe?
Which is more common, "oar" or "ours"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "oar" and "ours" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "oar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #281,907 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "oar" and "ours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oar vs omi". 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 #281,907 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.