Which to use
“when” is an adverb and “woken” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48
- “when” frequency rank
- #17,995
- “woken” frequency rank
- 18043
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | when | woken |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time. | past participle of wake |
Where the eye mixes when and woken
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: when vs woken
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: when is /ˈwɛn/ while woken is /ˈwəʊ.kən/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
when is recorded at frequency rank #48, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈwɛn/. woken is at rank #17,995, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈwəʊ.kən/.
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 18043, this pair ranks #447,493 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of when vs woken
Shared letters: enw. Private to "when": h. Private to "woken": ko.
"when" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "woken" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "when" and "woken" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "when" vs "woken" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "when" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "woken" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #447,493 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "when" and "woken" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "woken 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 #447,493 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.