whoresvswhosConfusable pair

Which to use

“whores” and “whos” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#18,463
“whores” frequency rank
#27,029
“whos” frequency rank
45492
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature whores whos
Definition plural of whore plural of who; often used along with whats, whys, hows, etc.

Letter map: whores vs whos

Shared letters muted; letters that set whores and whos apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. whores runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against whos's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
whores
4 ch
whos

Pair insight - whores / whos

whores and whos are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45492, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

whores is recorded at frequency rank #18,463, classified as anoun. whos is at rank #27,029, tagged as anoun, pronounced /huːz/.

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 45492, this pair ranks #220,792 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of whores vs whos

Shared letters: hosw. Private to "whores": er. Private to "whos": -.

"whores" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "whos" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • whores ← hwores · whhores · whoers · whoress · whorres · whorse · whroes · wohres
  • whos ← hwos · whhos · whoss · whso · wohs · wwhos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "whores" and "whos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "whores" vs "whos" - which ranks higher?
"whores" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,463 in our English list, against #27,029 for "whos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "whores" and "whos".

  • Full dictionary entry for "whores" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "whos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #220,792 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "whores" and "whos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "whorl vs whos". 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 #220,792 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