Which to use
“whales” is a noun and “what's” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,154
- “whales” frequency rank
- #645
- “what's” frequency rank
- 10799
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | whales | what's |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of whale | What is. |
Where the eye mixes whales and what's
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. whales runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against what's's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses whales with what's
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: whales is /weɪlz/ while what's is /wɒts/. 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 (noun vs contraction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10799, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
whales is recorded at frequency rank #10,154, classified as anoun, pronounced /weɪlz/. what's is at rank #645, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /wɒts/.
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 10799, this pair ranks #490,466 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of whales vs what's
Shared letters: ahsw. Private to "whales": el. Private to "what's": t.
"whales" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "what's" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- whales ← hwales · wahles · whaels · whaless · whalles · whalse · whhales · whlaes
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "whales" for "what's" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "whales" or "what's" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "whales" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "what's" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #490,466 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "whales" and "what's" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Whalen vs whales". 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 #490,466 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.