Which to use
“woke” is an adjective and “wort” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,999
- “woke” frequency rank
- #33,912
- “wort” frequency rank
- 38911
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | woke | wort |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Awake: conscious and not asleep. | Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine. |
Where the eye mixes woke and wort
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses woke with wort
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: woke is /wəʊk/ while wort is /wɜːt/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38911, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
woke is recorded at frequency rank #4,999, classified as anadj, pronounced /wəʊk/. wort is at rank #33,912, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɜːt/.
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 38911, this pair ranks #281,578 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of woke vs wort
Shared letters: ow. Private to "woke": ek. Private to "wort": rt.
"woke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "wort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "woke" and "wort" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "woke" or "wort"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "woke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "wort" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #281,578 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "woke" and "wort" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wort 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 #281,578 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.