wopvsworkConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#34,353
“wop” frequency rank
#116
“work” frequency rank
34469
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wop work
Definition An person of Italian descent. Employment.

Where the eye mixes wop and work

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
wop
4 ch
work

Why the eye confuses wop with work

A purely visual mix-up. wop (/wɒp/) and work (/wɜː(ɹ)k/) 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 34469, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wop is recorded at frequency rank #34,353, classified as anoun, pronounced /wɒp/. work is at rank #116, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wɜː(ɹ)k/.

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 34469, this pair ranks #320,502 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wop vs work

Shared letters: ow. Private to "wop": p. Private to "work": kr.

"wop" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "work" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • workowrk · wokr · workk · worrk · wrok · wwork

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wop" for "work" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/wɒp/ versus /wɜː(ɹ)k/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "wop" or "work"?
"work" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #116 in our English list, against #34,353 for "wop". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "wop" and "work" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wop" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "work" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,502 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wop" and "work" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wop 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 #320,502 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list