Which to use
“obey” is a verb and “oboe” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,219
- “obey” frequency rank
- #42,302
- “oboe” frequency rank
- 51521
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | obey | oboe |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To do as ordered by (a person, institution etc), to act according to the bidding of. | A soprano and melody wind instrument in the modern orchestra and wind ensemble. It is a smaller instrument and generally made of grenadilla wood. It is a member of the double reed family. |
Where the eye mixes obey and oboe
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: obey is /əʊˈbeɪ/ while oboe is /ˈəʊbəʊ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51521, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
obey is recorded at frequency rank #9,219, classified as averb, pronounced /əʊˈbeɪ/. oboe is at rank #42,302, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈəʊbəʊ/.
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 51521, this pair ranks #164,768 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of obey vs oboe
Shared letters: beo. Private to "obey": y. Private to "oboe": -.
"obey" · 4 letters · shape VCVV · "oboe" · 4 letters · shape VCVV