withvswithinWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#14
“with” frequency rank
#351
“within” frequency rank
365
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature with within
Definition Against. In the inner part, spatially; physically inside.

Where the eye mixes with and within

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
with
6 ch
within

Visual trap between with and within

A purely visual mix-up. with (/wɪð/) and within (/wɪðˈɪn/) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “with” sits inside “within”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 365, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

with is recorded at frequency rank #14, classified as aprep, pronounced /wɪð/. within is at rank #351, tagged as aprep, pronounced /wɪðˈɪn/.

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 365, this pair ranks #529,544 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of with vs within

Shared letters: hitw. Private to "with": -. Private to "within": n.

"with" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "within" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • withiwth · wiht · withh · witth · wtih · wwith
  • withiniwthin · wihtin · withhin · withinn · withni · witihn · witthin · wtihin

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "with" and "within" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/wɪð/ versus /wɪðˈɪn/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "with" or "within" show up more?
"with" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14 in our English list, against #351 for "within". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "with" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "within" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #529,544 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "with" and "within" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "with vs Wyeth". 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 #529,544 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