Which to use
“wily” is an adjective and “Wray” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,287
- “wily” frequency rank
- #32,658
- “Wray” frequency rank
- 69945
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wily | Wray |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sly, cunning, full of tricks. | A village in Wray-with-Botton parish, City of Lancaster district, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD6067). |
Letter map: wily vs Wray
Shared letters muted; letters that set wily and Wray apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. wily (CVCV) and Wray (CCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Role in the sentence - wily and Wray
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wily is anadjective and Wrayaname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69945, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wily is recorded at frequency rank #37,287, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈwaɪ.li/. Wray is at rank #32,658, tagged as aname.
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 69945, this pair ranks #52,510 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of wily vs Wray
Shared letters: wy. Private to "wily": il. Private to "Wray": ar.
"wily" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "Wray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "wily" and "Wray" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "wily" or "Wray"?
Useful next steps
Pair "wily" vs "Wray" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "wily" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Wray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #52,510 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wily" and "Wray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Willey vs wily". 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 #52,510 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.