sorvssorryWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sor is a noun, sorry is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sor” is a noun and “sorry” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,700
“sor” frequency rank
#682
“sorry” frequency rank
38382
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sor sorry
Definition A sorority (student organization). Regretful or apologetic for one's actions.

Letter map: sor vs sorry

Shared letters muted; letters that set sor and sorry apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
sor
5 ch
sorry

Role in the sentence - sor and sorry

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sor is anoun and sorryanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sor” sits inside “sorry”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38382, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sor is recorded at frequency rank #37,700, classified as anoun. sorry is at rank #682, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɒɹ.i/.

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 38382, this pair ranks #286,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sor vs sorry

Shared letters: ors. Private to "sor": -. Private to "sorry": y.

"sor" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "sorry" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sorryosrry · sorryy · sory · soryr · srory · ssorry

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sor" for "sorry" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sor" is a noun and "sorry" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sor" vs "sorry" - which ranks higher?
"sorry" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #682 in our English list, against #37,700 for "sor". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "sor" and "sorry". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sorry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #286,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sor" and "sorry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sor 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 #286,395 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