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Whiskey or whisky?

whiskey is a noun meaning “A liquor distilled from the fermented mash of grain (as rye, corn, or barley)”; whisky is a noun meaning “Alternative form of whiskey, an alcoholic liquor distilled from fermented…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) whiskey is about as common as whisky.

whiskeyorwhisky

What is the difference between whiskey and whisky?

whiskeywhisky
Part of speechnounnoun
Meaning

IrelandUSA liquor distilled from the fermented mash of grain (as rye, corn, or barley)

IrelandUSA drink of whiskey

A light gig or carriage drawn by one horse

AustraliaCanadaScotlandAlternative form of whiskey, an alcoholic liquor distilled from fermented grain, usually aged in oak barrels, (particularly) Scotch; a drink of this liquor

Alternative form of whiskey (“a light gig or carriage”)

Examplenone recordednone recorded
Formswhiskeys, whiskies (A liquor distilled from the…)
whiskeys (A light gig or carriage drawn by…)		whiskies
Pronunciation/ˈwɪski/ /ˈʍɪski//ˈwɪski/ /ˈʍɪski/
In writing6.0 times per million words4.3 times per million words

Sources: whiskey and whisky in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Every current meaning of whiskey and whisky

whiskey

  1. 1

    noun IrelandUSA liquor distilled from the fermented mash of grain (as rye, corn, or barley)

  2. 2

    noun A light gig or carriage drawn by one horse

  3. 3

    noun IrelandUSA drink of whiskey

  4. 4

    noun Alternative letter-case form of Whiskey from the NATO/ICAO Phonetic Alphabet

whisky

  1. 1

    noun AustraliaCanadaScotlandAlternative form of whiskey, an alcoholic liquor distilled from fermented grain, usually aged in oak barrels, (particularly) Scotch; a drink of this liquor

  2. 2

    noun Alternative form of whiskey (“a light gig or carriage”)

Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.

Which is more common, whiskey or whisky?

whiskey appears 6.0 times per million words; whisky 4.3 times per million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How many people search whiskey vs whisky?

“whiskey vs whisky” is searched about 3,600 times a month on Google and 270 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“whisky vs whiskey”, “whiskey or whisky”).

Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.

The words