WeldvswordTell them apart

Quick tell: Weld is a name, word is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Weld” is a name and “word” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,994
“Weld” frequency rank
#555
“word” frequency rank
19549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Weld word
Definition A surname from Old English possibly deriving from the Old English word for woodland. The family is mainly located in the Southern regions of England. The smallest unit of language that has a particular meaning and can be expressed by itself; the smallest discrete, meaningful unit of language. (contrast morpheme.)

Letter map: Weld vs word

Shared letters muted; letters that set Weld and word apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Weld
4 ch
word

Grammar separator: Weld vs word

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Weld is aname and wordanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Weld is recorded at frequency rank #18,994, classified as aname. word is at rank #555, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɜːd/.

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 19549, this pair ranks #437,406 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Weld vs word

Shared letters: dw. Private to "Weld": el. Private to "word": or.

"Weld" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "word" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Weldewld · wedl · weldd · welld · wled · wweld
  • wordowrd · wodr · wordd · worrd · wrod · wword

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Weld" for "word" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Weld" is a name and "word" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Weld" or "word"?
"word" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #555 in our English list, against #18,994 for "Weld". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Weld" and "word".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Weld" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "word" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,406 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Weld" and "word" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wali vs Weld". 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 #437,406 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