Which to use
“woken” and “wove” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #17,995
- “woken” frequency rank
- #49,728
- “wove” frequency rank
- 67723
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | woken | wove |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | past participle of wake | simple past of weave |
Where the eye mixes woken and wove
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. woken runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against wove's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses woken with wove
A purely visual mix-up. woken (/ˈwəʊ.kən/) and wove (/wəʊv/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
woken is recorded at frequency rank #17,995, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈwəʊ.kən/. 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 67723, this pair ranks #62,051 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of woken vs wove
Shared letters: eow. Private to "woken": kn. Private to "wove": v.
"woken" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "wove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "woken" and "wove" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "woken" or "wove" show up more?
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 "woken" 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 #62,051 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "woken" 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
Confusion rank #62,051 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.