widvswindyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: wid is a preposition, windy is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wid” is a preposition and “windy” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,993
“wid” frequency rank
#13,643
“windy” frequency rank
56636
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wid windy
Definition Pronunciation spelling of with. Accompanied by wind.

Where the eye mixes wid and windy

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
wid
5 ch
windy

Look-alike desk: wid vs windy

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wid is /wɪd/ while windy is /ˈwɪn.di/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56636, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wid is recorded at frequency rank #42,993, classified as aprep, pronounced /wɪd/. windy is at rank #13,643, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈwɪn.di/.

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 56636, this pair ranks #124,839 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of wid vs windy

Shared letters: diw. Private to "wid": -. Private to "windy": ny.

"wid" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "windy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • windyiwndy · widny · winddy · windyy · winndy · winyd · wnidy · wwindy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wid" and "windy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wid" is a preposition and "windy" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "wid" or "windy" show up more?
"windy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,643 in our English list, against #42,993 for "wid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "windy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #124,839 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wid" and "windy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wid vs WYO". 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 #124,839 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