who'revswhoresTell them apart

Quick tell: who're is a contraction, whores is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“who're” is a contraction and “whores” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,747
“who're” frequency rank
#18,463
“whores” frequency rank
53210
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature who're whores
Definition Who are. plural of whore

Letter map: who're vs whores

Shared letters muted; letters that set who're and whores apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. who're runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against whores's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
who're
6 ch
whores

Role in the sentence - who're and whores

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: who're is acontraction and whoresanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53210, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

who're is recorded at frequency rank #34,747, classified as acontraction, pronounced [hʊɚ]. whores is at rank #18,463, tagged as anoun.

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 53210, this pair ranks #150,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of who're vs whores

Shared letters: ehorw. Private to "who're": -. Private to "whores": s.

"who're" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "whores" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whores ← hwores · whhores · whoers · whoress · whorres · whorse · whroes · wohres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "who're" and "whores" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "who're" is a contraction and "whores" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "who're" or "whores" show up more?
"whores" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,463 in our English list, against #34,747 for "who're". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "who're" and "whores".

  • Full dictionary entry for "who're" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "whores" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #150,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "who're" and "whores" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "who're vs whorl". 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 #150,877 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