Which to use
“wide” is an adjective and “wore” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,177
- “wide” frequency rank
- #4,422
- “wore” frequency rank
- 5599
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wide | wore |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a large physical extent from side to side. | simple past of wear |
Where the eye mixes wide and wore
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wide is /waɪd/ while wore is /wɔː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5599, 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/. wore is at rank #4,422, tagged as averb, 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 5599, this pair ranks #514,692 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of wide vs wore
Shared letters: ew. Private to "wide": di. Private to "wore": or.
"wide" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "wore" · 4 letters · shape CVCV