woahvswoveWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: woah is a intj, wove is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“woah” is an intj and “wove” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,447
“woah” frequency rank
#49,728
“wove” frequency rank
63175
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature woah wove
Definition Alternative spelling of whoa. simple past of weave

Where the eye mixes woah and wove

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

4 ch
woah
4 ch
wove

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: woah is /woʊ/ while wove is /wəʊv/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (intj vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63175, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

woah is recorded at frequency rank #13,447, classified as anintj, pronounced /woʊ/. wove is at rank #49,728, tagged as averb, pronounced /wəʊv/.

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 63175, this pair ranks #84,451 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of woah vs wove

Shared letters: ow. Private to "woah": ah. Private to "wove": ev.

"woah" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "wove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • woahowah · waoh · woahh · wwoah
  • woveowve · woev · wovve · wvoe · wwove

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "woah" and "wove" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "woah" is an intj and "wove" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "woah" or "wove"?
"woah" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,447 in our English list, against #49,728 for "wove". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "woah" and "wove". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "woah" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wove" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #84,451 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "woah" and "wove" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wile 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list