oivsourWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: oi is a intj, our is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“oi” is an intj and “our” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,081
“oi” frequency rank
#76
“our” frequency rank
11157
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature oi our
Definition Said to get someone's attention; hey. Belonging to us, excluding the person(s) being addressed (exclusive our).

Where the eye mixes oi and our

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch
oi
3 ch
our

Look-alike desk: oi vs our

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: oi is /ɔɪ/ while our is /ˈaʊə(ɹ)/. 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 (intj vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11157, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

oi is recorded at frequency rank #11,081, classified as anintj, pronounced /ɔɪ/. our is at rank #76, tagged as adet, pronounced /ˈaʊə(ɹ)/.

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 11157, this pair ranks #488,596 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of oi vs our

Shared letters: o. Private to "oi": i. Private to "our": ru.

"oi" · 2 letters · shape VV  ·  "our" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "oi" and "our" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "oi" is an intj and "our" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "oi" vs "our" - which ranks higher?
"our" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #76 in our English list, against #11,081 for "oi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "oi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "our" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #488,596 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "oi" and "our" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oi vs omi". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #488,596 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