Which to use
“wax” is a noun and “Wray” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,105
- “wax” frequency rank
- #32,658
- “Wray” frequency rank
- 40763
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wax | Wray |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Beeswax. | A village in Wray-with-Botton parish, City of Lancaster district, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD6067). |
Letter map: wax vs Wray
Shared letters muted; letters that set wax and Wray apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for wax / Wray
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wax is anoun and Wrayaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40763, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wax is recorded at frequency rank #8,105, classified as anoun, pronounced /wæks/. Wray is at rank #32,658, tagged as aname.
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 40763, this pair ranks #264,597 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of wax vs Wray
Shared letters: aw. Private to "wax": x. Private to "Wray": ry.
"wax" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "Wray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- Wray ← rway · wrayy · wrray · wrya · wwray
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "wax" and "Wray" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "wax" or "Wray" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "wax" and "Wray".
- Full dictionary entry for "wax" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Wray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #264,597 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wax" and "Wray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wordy vs Wray". 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 #264,597 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.