walksvswarsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,203
“walks” frequency rank
#2,565
“wars” frequency rank
6768
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature walks wars
Definition plural of walk plural of war

Where the eye mixes walks and wars

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

5 ch
walks
4 ch
wars

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. walks (/wɔːks/) and wars (/wɔɹz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6768, 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/. wars is at rank #2,565, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɔɹz/.

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 6768, this pair ranks #510,066 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of walks vs wars

Shared letters: asw. Private to "walks": kl. Private to "wars": r.

"walks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "wars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • walksawlks · wakls · walkks · walkss · wallks · walsk · wlaks · wwalks
  • warsawrs · warrs · warss · wasr · wras · wwars

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "walks" and "wars" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/wɔːks/ versus /wɔɹz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "walks" or "wars"?
"wars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,565 in our English list, against #4,203 for "walks". 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