walksvswaresWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,203
“walks” frequency rank
#23,152
“wares” frequency rank
27355
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature walks wares
Definition plural of walk plural of ware

Where the eye mixes walks and wares

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

5 ch
walks
5 ch
wares

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. walks (/wɔːks/) and wares (/wɛəz/) 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 27355, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

walks is recorded at frequency rank #4,203, classified as anoun, pronounced /wɔːks/. wares is at rank #23,152, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɛəz/.

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 27355, this pair ranks #379,582 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of walks vs wares

Shared letters: asw. Private to "walks": kl. Private to "wares": er.

"walks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "wares" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • walksawlks · wakls · walkks · walkss · wallks · walsk · wlaks · wwalks
  • waresawres · waress · warres · warse · wraes · wwares

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "walks" and "wares" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/wɔːks/ versus /wɛəz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "walks" or "wares"?
"walks" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,203 in our English list, against #23,152 for "wares". 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