# woe vs worse

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### woe
*noun · IPA /wəʊ/ · frequency rank #19,509*
Great sadness or distress; a misfortune causing such sadness.

### worse
*adjective · IPA /wɜːs/ · frequency rank #1,381*
comparative form of bad: more bad

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/woe-vs-worse