Which to use
“wold” and “woods” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #42,997
- “wold” frequency rank
- #3,345
- “woods” frequency rank
- 46342
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wold | woods |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An unforested or deforested plain, a grassland, a moor. | plural of wood |
Where the eye mixes wold and woods
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. wold runs 4 letters (CVCC) against woods's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses wold with woods
A purely visual mix-up. wold (/wəʊld/) and woods (/wʊdz/) 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 46342, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wold is recorded at frequency rank #42,997, classified as anoun, pronounced /wəʊld/. woods is at rank #3,345, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wʊdz/.
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 46342, this pair ranks #212,705 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of wold vs woods
Shared letters: dow. Private to "wold": l. Private to "woods": s.
"wold" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "woods" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "wold" and "woods" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "wold" or "woods" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "wold" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "woods" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #212,705 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wold" and "woods" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wold 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 #212,705 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.