Which to use
“whos” and “wood” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #27,029
- “whos” frequency rank
- #1,743
- “wood” frequency rank
- 28772
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | whos | wood |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of who; often used along with whats, whys, hows, etc. | The substance making up the central part of the trunk and branches of a tree. Used as a material for construction, to manufacture various items, etc. or as fuel. |
Where the eye mixes whos and wood
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: whos vs wood
A purely visual mix-up. whos (/huːz/) and wood (/wʊd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28772, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
whos is recorded at frequency rank #27,029, classified as anoun, pronounced /huːz/. wood is at rank #1,743, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wʊd/.
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 28772, this pair ranks #368,452 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of whos vs wood
Shared letters: ow. Private to "whos": hs. Private to "wood": d.
"whos" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "wood" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "whos" for "wood" ever safe?
Which is more common, "whos" or "wood"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "whos" and "wood" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "whos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "wood" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #368,452 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "whos" and "wood" 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 #368,452 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.