Which to use
“wood” is a noun and “wordy” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,743
- “wood” frequency rank
- #49,727
- “wordy” frequency rank
- 51470
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wood | wordy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The substance making up the central part of the trunk and branches of a tree. Used as a material for construction, to manufacture various items, etc. or as fuel. | Using an excessive number of words. |
Where the eye mixes wood and wordy
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. wood runs 4 letters (CVVC) against wordy's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: wood vs wordy
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wood is /wʊd/ while wordy is /ˈwɝdi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51470, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wood is recorded at frequency rank #1,743, classified as anoun, pronounced /wʊd/. wordy is at rank #49,727, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈwɝdi/.
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 51470, this pair ranks #165,213 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of wood vs wordy
Shared letters: dow. Private to "wood": -. Private to "wordy": ry.
"wood" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "wordy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "wood" for "wordy" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "wood" or "wordy" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "wood" and "wordy" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "wood" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "wordy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #165,213 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wood" and "wordy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wold vs wordy". 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 #165,213 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.