parkvspryWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#717
“park” frequency rank
#26,212
“pry” frequency rank
26929
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature park pry
Definition An area of land set aside for environment preservation or recreation. To peer closely and curiously, especially at something closed or not public.

Where the eye mixes park and pry

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
park
3 ch
pry

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: park is /pɑɹk/ while pry is /pɹaɪ/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26929, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

park is recorded at frequency rank #717, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɑɹk/. pry is at rank #26,212, tagged as averb, pronounced /pɹaɪ/.

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 26929, this pair ranks #382,970 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of park vs pry

Shared letters: pr. Private to "park": ak. Private to "pry": y.

"park" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pry" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • parkaprk · pakr · parkk · parrk · ppark · prak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "park" and "pry" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "park" is a noun and "pry" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "park" or "pry"?
"park" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #717 in our English list, against #26,212 for "pry". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list