womans vs women's, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“womans” and “women's” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,954
“womans” frequency rank: #2,057
“women's” frequency rank: 44011
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	womans	women's
Definition	plural of woman	possessive case of women: belonging to some or all female humans.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set womans and women's apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch

womans

7 ch

women's

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

womans and women's are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44011, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

womans is recorded at frequency rank #41,954, classified as anoun. women's is at rank #2,057, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈwɪmɪnz/.

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 44011, this pair ranks #234,541 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of womans vs women's

Shared letters: mnosw. Private to "womans": a. Private to "women's": e.

"womans" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "women's" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

womans ← owmans · wmoans · woamns · womanns · womanss · womasn · wommans · womnas

Frequency comparison

womans#41,954

women's#2,057

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "womans" and "women's" be used interchangeably?

No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Which is more common, "womans" or "women's"?

"women's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,057 in our English list, against #41,954 for "womans". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering womans vs women's

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “womans” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable