valvsvalidTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#11,148
“val” frequency rank
#3,792
“valid” frequency rank
14940
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature val valid
Definition Valium. Well-grounded or justifiable, pertinent.

Letter map: val vs valid

Shared letters muted; letters that set val and valid apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
val
5 ch
valid

Part-of-speech tell for val / valid

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: val is anoun and validanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “val” sits inside “valid”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14940, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

val is recorded at frequency rank #11,148, classified as anoun. valid is at rank #3,792, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈvælɪd/.

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 14940, this pair ranks #467,027 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of val vs valid

Shared letters: alv. Private to "val": -. Private to "valid": di.

"val" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "valid" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • validavlid · vaild · valdi · validd · vallid · vlaid · vvalid

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "val" for "valid" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "val" is a noun and "valid" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "val" or "valid" show up more?
"valid" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,792 in our English list, against #11,148 for "val". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "val" and "valid". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "val" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "valid" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #467,027 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "val" and "valid" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "val vs VH". 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 #467,027 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