wartvsworkWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#38,680
“wart” frequency rank
#116
“work” frequency rank
38796
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wart work
Definition A type of deformed growth occurring on the skin caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Employment.

Where the eye mixes wart and work

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

4 ch
wart
4 ch
work

Look-alike desk: wart vs work

A purely visual mix-up. wart (/wɔːt/) and work (/wɜː(ɹ)k/) 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 38796, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wart is recorded at frequency rank #38,680, classified as anoun, pronounced /wɔːt/. work is at rank #116, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɜː(ɹ)k/.

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 38796, this pair ranks #282,658 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wart vs work

Shared letters: rw. Private to "wart": at. Private to "work": ko.

"wart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "work" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wartawrt · warrt · wartt · watr · wrat · wwart
  • workowrk · wokr · workk · worrk · wrok · wwork

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wart" and "work" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/wɔːt/ versus /wɜː(ɹ)k/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "wart" vs "work" - which ranks higher?
"work" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #116 in our English list, against #38,680 for "wart". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "work" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,658 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wart" and "work" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wart vs wawa". 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 #282,658 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