weavevswedgeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: weave is a verb, wedge is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“weave” is a verb and “wedge” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,455
“weave” frequency rank
#12,715
“wedge” frequency rank
27170
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature weave wedge
Definition To form something by passing lengths or strands of material over and under one another. One of the simple machines; a piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow crevice, used for splitting, tightening, securing, or levering.

Where the eye mixes weave and wedge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
weave
5 ch
wedge

Why the eye confuses weave with wedge

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: weave is /wiːv/ while wedge is /wɛd͡ʒ/. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27170, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

weave is recorded at frequency rank #14,455, classified as averb, pronounced /wiːv/. wedge is at rank #12,715, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɛd͡ʒ/.

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 27170, this pair ranks #381,044 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of weave vs wedge

Shared letters: ew. Private to "weave": av. Private to "wedge": dg.

"weave" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "wedge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • weaveewave · waeve · weaev · weavve · wevae · wweave
  • wedgeewdge · wdege · weddge · wedeg · wedgge · wegde · wwedge

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "weave" for "wedge" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "weave" is a verb and "wedge" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "weave" or "wedge"?
"wedge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,715 in our English list, against #14,455 for "weave". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "weave" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wedge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #381,044 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "weave" and "wedge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "weave vs wove". 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 #381,044 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