WilesvswiltWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Wiles is a name, wilt is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Wiles” is a name and “wilt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,472
“Wiles” frequency rank
#21,980
“wilt” frequency rank
63452
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Wiles wilt
Definition A surname transferred from the nickname. A patronymic form of Wile. To droop or become limp and flaccid (as a dying leaf or flower).

Letter map: Wiles vs wilt

Shared letters muted; letters that set Wiles and wilt apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Wiles runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against wilt's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Wiles
4 ch
wilt

Part-of-speech tell for Wiles / wilt

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Wiles is aname and wiltaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63452, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Wiles is recorded at frequency rank #41,472, classified as aname. wilt is at rank #21,980, tagged as averb, pronounced /wɪlt/.

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 63452, this pair ranks #82,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Wiles vs wilt

Shared letters: ilw. Private to "Wiles": es. Private to "wilt": t.

"Wiles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "wilt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wiles ← iwles · wiels · wiless · willes · wilse · wlies · wwiles
  • wilt ← iwlt · willt · wiltt · witl · wlit · wwilt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Wiles" for "wilt" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Wiles" is a name and "wilt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Wiles" or "wilt" show up more?
"wilt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,980 in our English list, against #41,472 for "Wiles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Wiles" and "wilt".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Wiles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wilt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #82,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Wiles" and "wilt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Wiles vs Willey". 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 #82,877 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