Won or yuan?
won is a noun meaning “The currency of Korea, worth 100 jun in North Korea and 100 jeon in South Korea”; yuan is a noun meaning “The basic unit of money in China”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) won is about 32 times as common as yuan.
What is the difference between won and yuan?
| won | yuan | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun |
| Meaning | The currency of Korea, worth 100 jun in North Korea and 100 jeon in South Korea | The basic unit of money in China One of the five branches of the government of the Republic of China |
| Example | I long'd to leave this wand'ring pilgrimage, / And in my native soil again to won | none recorded |
| Forms | none | yuans |
| Pronunciation | /wɒn/ /wɑn/ /wʌn/ | /ˌjuːˈæn/ /ˈwæn/ /juˈɑn/ |
| In writing | 158 times per million words | 5.0 times per million words |
Sources: won and yuan in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of won and yuan
won
- 1
The currency of Korea, worth 100 jun in North Korea and 100 jeon in South Korea
yuan
- 1
The basic unit of money in China
- 2
One of the five branches of the government of the Republic of China
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, won or yuan?
won appears 158 times per million words; yuan 5.0 times per million words.
won 158 times per million wordsyuan 5.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).