widevswimWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: wide is a adjective, wim is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wide” is an adjective and “wim” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,177
“wide” frequency rank
#46,269
“wim” frequency rank
47446
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wide wim
Definition Having a large physical extent from side to side. Initialism of warm ionized medium.

Letter map: wide vs wim

Shared letters muted; letters that set wide and wim apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
wide
3 ch
wim

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wide is anadjective and wimanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47446, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wide is recorded at frequency rank #1,177, classified as anadj, pronounced /waɪd/. wim is at rank #46,269, tagged as anoun.

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 47446, this pair ranks #202,382 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wide vs wim

Shared letters: iw. Private to "wide": de. Private to "wim": m.

"wide" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "wim" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wideiwde · wdie · widde · wied · wwide

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wide" and "wim" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wide" is an adjective and "wim" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wide" or "wim"?
"wide" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,177 in our English list, against #46,269 for "wim". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list