oathvsothWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,587
“oath” frequency rank
#39,944
“oth” frequency rank
47531
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature oath oth
Definition A solemn pledge or promise that invokes a deity, a ruler, or another entity (not necessarily present) to attest the truth of a statement or sincerity of one's desire to fulfill a contract or promise. Obsolete spelling of oath.

Letter map: oath vs oth

Shared letters muted; letters that set oath and oth apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. oath runs 4 letters (VVCC) against oth's 3 (VCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
oath
3 ch
oth

Corpus notes: oath and oth

oath and oth are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47531, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

oath is recorded at frequency rank #7,587, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈəʊθ/. oth is at rank #39,944, tagged as anoun.

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 47531, this pair ranks #201,608 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of oath vs oth

Shared letters: hot. Private to "oath": a. Private to "oth": -.

"oath" · 4 letters · shape VVCC  ·  "oth" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • oath ← aoth · oaht · oathh · oatth · otah

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "oath" and "oth" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "oath" or "oth" show up more?
"oath" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,587 in our English list, against #39,944 for "oth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "oath" vs "oth" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "oath" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "oth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #201,608 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "oath" and "oth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "omi vs oth". 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 #201,608 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