wingvswitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,471
“wing” frequency rank
#7,637
“wit” frequency rank
10108
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wing wit
Definition An appendage of an animal's (bird, bat, insect) body that enables it to fly. Sanity.

Where the eye mixes wing and wit

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

4 ch
wing
3 ch
wit

Look-alike desk: wing vs wit

A purely visual mix-up. wing (/wɪŋ/) and wit (/wɪt/) 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 10108, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wing is recorded at frequency rank #2,471, classified as anoun, pronounced /wɪŋ/. wit is at rank #7,637, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɪt/.

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 10108, this pair ranks #493,985 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wing vs wit

Shared letters: iw. Private to "wing": gn. Private to "wit": t.

"wing" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "wit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wingiwng · wign · wingg · winng · wnig · wwing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wing" for "wit" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/wɪŋ/ versus /wɪt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "wing" vs "wit" - which ranks higher?
"wing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,471 in our English list, against #7,637 for "wit". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "wing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #493,985 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wing" and "wit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wit vs WYO". 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 #493,985 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