wildestvswildsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#21,424
“wildest” frequency rank
#33,088
“wilds” frequency rank
54512
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wildest wilds
Definition superlative form of wild: most wild plural of wild

Letter map: wildest vs wilds

Shared letters muted; letters that set wildest and wilds apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. wildest runs 7 letters (CVCCVCC) against wilds's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
wildest
5 ch
wilds

Grammar separator: wildest vs wilds

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wildest is anadjective and wildsanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54512, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wildest is recorded at frequency rank #21,424, classified as anadj. wilds is at rank #33,088, 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 54512, this pair ranks #140,524 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wildest vs wilds

Shared letters: dilsw. Private to "wildest": et. Private to "wilds": -.

"wildest" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "wilds" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wildest ← iwldest · widlest · wilddest · wildesst · wildestt · wildets · wildset · wiledst
  • wilds ← iwlds · widls · wildds · wildss · willds · wilsd · wlids · wwilds

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wildest" for "wilds" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wildest" is an adjective and "wilds" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wildest" vs "wilds" - which ranks higher?
"wildest" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,424 in our English list, against #33,088 for "wilds". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "wildest" and "wilds".

  • Full dictionary entry for "wildest" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wilds" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #140,524 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wildest" and "wilds" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wilds vs wile". 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 #140,524 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