weathervswetherWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,443
“weather” frequency rank
#38,242
“wether” frequency rank
39685
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature weather wether
Definition The short-term state of the atmosphere at a specific time and place, including the temperature, relative humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, wind, etc. A castrated goat.

Where the eye mixes weather and wether

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
weather
6 ch
wether

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. weather (/ˈwɛð.ə/) and wether (/ˈwɛðɚ/) 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 39685, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

weather is recorded at frequency rank #1,443, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈwɛð.ə/. wether is at rank #38,242, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈwɛðɚ/.

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 39685, this pair ranks #274,456 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of weather vs wether

Shared letters: ehrtw. Private to "weather": a. Private to "wether": -.

"weather" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "wether" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • weatherewather · waether · weahter · weatehr · weatherr · weathher · weathre · weatther
  • wetherewther · wehter · wetehr · wetherr · wethher · wethre · wetther · wteher

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "weather" and "wether" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈwɛð.ə/ versus /ˈwɛðɚ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "weather" or "wether"?
"weather" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,443 in our English list, against #38,242 for "wether". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list