wearyvswerkConfusable pair

Quick tell: weary is a adjective, werk is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“weary” is an adjective and “werk” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,887
“weary” frequency rank
#46,860
“werk” frequency rank
59747
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature weary werk
Definition Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued. Alternative form of work.

Letter map: weary vs werk

Shared letters muted; letters that set weary and werk apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. weary runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against werk's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
weary
4 ch
werk

Part-of-speech tell for weary / werk

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: weary is anadjective and werkaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59747, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

weary is recorded at frequency rank #12,887, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈwɪə̯ɹi/. werk is at rank #46,860, tagged as averb.

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 59747, this pair ranks #104,332 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of weary vs werk

Shared letters: erw. Private to "weary": ay. Private to "werk": k.

"weary" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "werk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • weary ← ewary · waery · wearry · wearyy · weayr · weray · wweary
  • werk ← ewrk · wekr · werkk · werrk · wrek · wwerk

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "weary" and "werk" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "weary" is an adjective and "werk" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "weary" or "werk"?
"weary" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,887 in our English list, against #46,860 for "werk". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "weary" vs "werk" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "weary" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "werk" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #104,332 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "weary" and "werk" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Wea vs werk". 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 #104,332 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