whoovsworWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: whoo is a intj, wor is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“whoo” is an intj and “wor” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,768
“whoo” frequency rank
#36,016
“wor” frequency rank
73784
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature whoo wor
Definition An expression of delight and excitement. Our.

Where the eye mixes whoo and wor

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. whoo runs 4 letters (CCVV) against wor's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
whoo
3 ch
wor

Visual trap between whoo and wor

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: whoo is /wuː/ while wor is /wɔː/. 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 (intj vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73784, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

whoo is recorded at frequency rank #37,768, classified as anintj, pronounced /wuː/. wor is at rank #36,016, tagged as adet, pronounced /wɔː/.

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 73784, this pair ranks #38,431 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of whoo vs wor

Shared letters: ow. Private to "whoo": h. Private to "wor": r.

"whoo" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "wor" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whoo ← hwoo · whhoo · woho · wwhoo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "whoo" for "wor" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "whoo" is an intj and "wor" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "whoo" vs "wor" - which ranks higher?
"wor" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,016 in our English list, against #37,768 for "whoo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "whoo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,431 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "whoo" and "wor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "whoo 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 #38,431 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