wiltvswinWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“wilt” and “win” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#21,980
“wilt” frequency rank
#408
“win” frequency rank
22388
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wilt win
Definition To droop or become limp and flaccid (as a dying leaf or flower). To conquer, defeat.

Where the eye mixes wilt and win

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

4 ch
wilt
3 ch
win

Look-alike desk: wilt vs win

A purely visual mix-up. wilt (/wɪlt/) and win (/wɪn/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22388, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wilt is recorded at frequency rank #21,980, classified as averb, pronounced /wɪlt/. win is at rank #408, tagged as averb, pronounced /wɪn/.

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 22388, this pair ranks #416,955 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wilt vs win

Shared letters: iw. Private to "wilt": lt. Private to "win": n.

"wilt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "win" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wiltiwlt · willt · wiltt · witl · wlit · wwilt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wilt" for "win" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/wɪlt/ versus /wɪn/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "wilt" vs "win" - which ranks higher?
"win" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #408 in our English list, against #21,980 for "wilt". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wilt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "win" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,955 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wilt" and "win" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wilt vs wilted". 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 #416,955 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