walkvswarnWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“walk” and “warn” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#891
“walk” frequency rank
#6,976
“warn” frequency rank
7867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature walk warn
Definition To move on the feet by alternately setting each foot (or pair or group of feet, in the case of animals with four or more feet) forward, with at least one foot on the ground at all times. Compare run. To make (someone) aware of (something impending); especially:

Where the eye mixes walk and warn

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

4 ch
walk
4 ch
warn

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. walk (/wɔːk/) and warn (/wɔːn/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

walk is recorded at frequency rank #891, classified as averb, pronounced /wɔːk/. warn is at rank #6,976, tagged as averb, pronounced /wɔːn/.

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 7867, this pair ranks #505,216 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of walk vs warn

Shared letters: aw. Private to "walk": kl. Private to "warn": nr.

"walk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "warn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • walkawlk · wakl · walkk · wallk · wlak · wwalk
  • warnawrn · wanr · warnn · warrn · wran · wwarn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "walk" and "warn" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/wɔːk/ versus /wɔːn/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "walk" or "warn"?
"walk" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #891 in our English list, against #6,976 for "warn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list