obese vs ones, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“obese” is an adjective and “ones” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,573
“obese” frequency rank: #909
“ones” frequency rank: 12482
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	obese	ones
Definition	Extremely overweight, especially: weighing more than 20% (for men) or 25% (for women) over their conventionally ideal weight determined by height and build; or, having a body mass index over 30 kg/m².	plural of one

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set obese and ones apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch

obese

4 ch

ones

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: obese is /oʊˈbis/ while ones is /wʌnz/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12482, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

obese is recorded at frequency rank #11,573, classified as anadj, pronounced /oʊˈbis/. ones is at rank #909, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wʌnz/.

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 12482, this pair ranks #481,318 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of obese vs ones

Shared letters: eos. Private to "obese": b. Private to "ones": n.

"obese" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV · "ones" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

obese ← boese · obbese · obees · obesse · obsee · oebse
ones ← noes · oens · oness · onnes · onse

Frequency comparison

obese#11,573

ones#909

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "obese" and "ones" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obese" is an adjective and "ones" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "obese" or "ones"?

"ones" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #909 in our English list, against #11,573 for "obese". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering obese vs ones

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “obese”; for a noun, it's “ones”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “obese” entry
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