whichvswithTell them apart

Quick tell: which is a conjunction, with is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“which” is a conjunction and “with” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#59
“which” frequency rank
#14
“with” frequency rank
73
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature which with
Definition And. Against.

Where the eye mixes which and with

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

5 ch
which
4 ch
with

Look-alike desk: which vs with

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: which is /wɪt͡ʃ/ while with is /wɪð/. 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 (conjunction vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

which is recorded at frequency rank #59, classified as aconj, pronounced /wɪt͡ʃ/. with is at rank #14, tagged as aprep, pronounced /wɪð/.

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 73, this pair ranks #529,934 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of which vs with

Shared letters: hiw. Private to "which": c. Private to "with": t.

"which" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "with" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whichhwich · whcih · whhich · whicch · whichh · whihc · wihch · wwhich
  • withiwth · wiht · withh · witth · wtih · wwith

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "which" and "with" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "which" is a conjunction and "with" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "which" vs "with" - which ranks higher?
"with" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14 in our English list, against #59 for "which". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "which" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "with" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #529,934 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "which" and "with" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "with vs Wyeth". 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 #529,934 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