Which to use
“what” is a determiner and “what'd” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46
- “what” frequency rank
- #30,652
- “what'd” frequency rank
- 30698
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | what | what'd |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Which, especially which of an open-ended set of possibilities. | Contraction of what + did. |
Where the eye mixes what and what'd
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. what runs 4 letters (CCVC) against what'd's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: what vs what'd
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: what is /wɒt/ while what'd is /wʌd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “what” sits inside “what'd”, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs contraction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30698, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
what is recorded at frequency rank #46, classified as adet, pronounced /wɒt/. what'd is at rank #30,652, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /wʌd/.
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 30698, this pair ranks #352,342 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of what vs what'd
Shared letters: ahtw. Private to "what": -. Private to "what'd": d.
"what" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "what'd" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- what ← hwat · waht · whatt · whhat · whta · wwhat
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "what" for "what'd" ever safe?
Which is more common, "what" or "what'd"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "what" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "what'd" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #352,342 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "what" and "what'd" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "what'd vs what're". 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 #352,342 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.