wiltvswtWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#21,980
“wilt” frequency rank
#18,227
“wt” frequency rank
40207
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wilt wt
Definition To droop or become limp and flaccid (as a dying leaf or flower). Abbreviation of with.

Letter map: wilt vs wt

Shared letters muted; letters that set wilt and wt apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
wilt
2 ch
wt

Part-of-speech tell for wilt / wt

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wilt is averb and wtapreposition. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40207, 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/. wt is at rank #18,227, tagged as aprep.

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 40207, this pair ranks #269,658 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wilt vs wt

Shared letters: tw. Private to "wilt": il. Private to "wt": -.

"wilt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "wt" · 2 letters · shape CC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wilt" and "wt" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wilt" is a verb and "wt" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "wilt" or "wt" show up more?
"wt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,227 in our English list, against #21,980 for "wilt". 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 "wilt" and "wt".

  • Full dictionary entry for "wilt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #269,658 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wilt" and "wt" 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 #269,658 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