wovswornWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: wo is a intj, worn is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wo” is an intj and “worn” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,327
“wo” frequency rank
#4,644
“worn” frequency rank
15971
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wo worn
Definition A falconer's call to a hawk. Damaged and shabby as a result of much use.

Letter map: wo vs worn

Shared letters muted; letters that set wo and worn apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
wo
4 ch
worn

Role in the sentence - wo and worn

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wo is anintj and wornanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “wo” sits inside “worn”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15971, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wo is recorded at frequency rank #11,327, classified as anintj. worn is at rank #4,644, tagged as anadj, pronounced /wɔːn/.

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 15971, this pair ranks #460,699 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wo vs worn

Shared letters: ow. Private to "wo": -. Private to "worn": nr.

"wo" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "worn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wornowrn · wonr · wornn · worrn · wron · wworn

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wo" and "worn" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wo" is an intj and "worn" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wo" vs "worn" - which ranks higher?
"worn" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,644 in our English list, against #11,327 for "wo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "wo" and "worn".

  • Full dictionary entry for "wo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "worn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #460,699 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wo" and "worn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wo vs wove". 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 #460,699 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