opsvsownsConfusable pair

Quick tell: ops is a noun, owns is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ops” is a noun and “owns” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,639
“ops” frequency rank
#5,071
“owns” frequency rank
14710
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ops owns
Definition operations third-person singular simple present indicative of own

Letter map: ops vs owns

Shared letters muted; letters that set ops and owns apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
ops
4 ch
owns

Part-of-speech tell for ops / owns

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ops is anoun and ownsaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14710, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ops is recorded at frequency rank #9,639, classified as anoun. owns is at rank #5,071, tagged as averb, pronounced /əʊnz/.

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 14710, this pair ranks #468,429 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ops vs owns

Shared letters: os. Private to "ops": p. Private to "owns": nw.

"ops" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "owns" · 4 letters · shape VCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ownsonws · ownns · ownss · owsn · owwns · wons

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ops" for "owns" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ops" is a noun and "owns" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ops" vs "owns" - which ranks higher?
"owns" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,071 in our English list, against #9,639 for "ops". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ops" and "owns".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ops" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "owns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #468,429 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ops" and "owns" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "omi vs ops". 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 #468,429 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