Which to use
“whos” is a noun and “wor” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,029
- “whos” frequency rank
- #36,016
- “wor” frequency rank
- 63045
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | whos | wor |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of who; often used along with whats, whys, hows, etc. | Our. |
Where the eye mixes whos and wor
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. whos runs 4 letters (CCVC) against wor's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses whos with wor
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: whos is /huːz/ 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 (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63045, 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/. 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 63045, this pair ranks #85,191 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of whos vs wor
Shared letters: ow. Private to "whos": hs. Private to "wor": r.
"whos" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "wor" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- whos ← hwos · whhos · whoss · whso · wohs · wwhos
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "whos" and "wor" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "whos" or "wor" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "whos" 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 #85,191 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "whos" and "wor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wor vs wove". 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 #85,191 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.