OS vs our, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#6,077
“OS” frequency rank: #76
“our” frequency rank: 6153
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	OS	our
Definition	Initialism of Owen Sound.	Belonging to us, excluding the person(s) being addressed (exclusive our).

Where the eye mixes OS and our

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

2 ch

3 ch

our

Why the eye confuses OS with our

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: OS is /ˌoʊ ˈɛs/ 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 (name vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6153, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

OS is recorded at frequency rank #6,077, classified as aname, pronounced /ˌoʊ ˈɛs/. 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 6153, this pair ranks #512,529 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of OS vs our

Shared letters: o. Private to "OS": s. Private to "our": ru.

"OS" · 2 letters · shape VC · "our" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "OS" for "our" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "OS" is a name and "our" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "OS" or "our"?

"our" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #76 in our English list, against #6,077 for "OS". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "OS" and "our" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

Full dictionary entry for "OS" 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 #512,529 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"OS" and "our" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "omi vs OS". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #512,529 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.