solavssownWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#41,891
“sola” frequency rank
#30,976
“sown” frequency rank
72867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sola sown
Definition Alternative form of shola. past participle of sow

Letter map: sola vs sown

Shared letters muted; letters that set sola and sown apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sola (CVCV) and sown (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
sola
4 ch
sown

Role in the sentence - sola and sown

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sola is anoun and sownaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sola is recorded at frequency rank #41,891, classified as anoun. sown is at rank #30,976, tagged as averb, pronounced /soʊn/.

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 72867, this pair ranks #41,548 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sola vs sown

Shared letters: os. Private to "sola": al. Private to "sown": nw.

"sola" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sown" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sola ← osla · sloa · soal · solla · ssola
  • sown ← oswn · sownn · sowwn · ssown · swon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sola" for "sown" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sola" is a noun and "sown" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "sola" or "sown" show up more?
"sown" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,976 in our English list, against #41,891 for "sola". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "sola" vs "sown" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sola" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sown" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,548 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sola" and "sown" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sola vs sura". 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 #41,548 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