Which to use
“wear” is a verb and “what” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,289
- “wear” frequency rank
- #46
- “what” frequency rank
- 1335
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wear | what |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To have on: | Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities. |
Where the eye mixes wear and what
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wear is /wɛə/ while what is /wɒt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1335, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wear is recorded at frequency rank #1,289, classified as averb, pronounced /wɛə/. what is at rank #46, tagged as adet, pronounced /wɒt/.
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 1335, this pair ranks #527,628 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of wear vs what
Shared letters: aw. Private to "wear": er. Private to "what": ht.
"wear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "what" · 4 letters · shape CCVC