wildvswithWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: wild is a adjective, with is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,679
“wild” frequency rank
#14
“with” frequency rank
1693
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wild with
Definition Untamed; not domesticated. Against.

Where the eye mixes wild and with

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
wild
4 ch
with

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wild is /waɪld/ while with is /wɪð/. 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 preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1693, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wild is recorded at frequency rank #1,679, classified as anadj, pronounced /waɪld/. with is at rank #14, tagged as aprep, pronounced /wɪð/.

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 1693, this pair ranks #526,881 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wild vs with

Shared letters: iw. Private to "wild": dl. Private to "with": ht.

"wild" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "with" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wildiwld · widl · wildd · willd · wlid · wwild
  • withiwth · wiht · withh · witth · wtih · wwith

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wild" and "with" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wild" is an adjective and "with" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wild" or "with"?
"with" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14 in our English list, against #1,679 for "wild". 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