partyvspryWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#308
“party” frequency rank
#26,212
“pry” frequency rank
26520
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature party pry
Definition A person or group of people constituting one side in a legal proceeding, such as in a legal action or a contract. To peer closely and curiously, especially at something closed or not public.

Where the eye mixes party and pry

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
party
3 ch
pry

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: party is /ˈpɑː.ti/ while pry is /pɹaɪ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 26520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

party is recorded at frequency rank #308, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɑː.ti/. 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 26520, this pair ranks #386,090 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of party vs pry

Shared letters: pry. Private to "party": at. Private to "pry": -.

"party" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "pry" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • partyaprty · parrty · partty · partyy · paryt · patry · pparty · praty

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "party" and "pry" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "party" is a noun and "pry" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "party" or "pry"?
"party" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #308 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.

What to do next

You've compared "party" and "pry". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "party" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #386,090 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "party" and "pry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "PPA vs pry". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list