Which to use
“wor” is a determiner and “worst” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,016
- “wor” frequency rank
- #1,259
- “worst” frequency rank
- 37275
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wor | worst |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Our. | superlative form of bad: most bad |
Where the eye mixes wor and worst
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wor is /wɔː/ while worst is /wɜːst/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “wor” sits inside “worst”, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37275, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wor is recorded at frequency rank #36,016, classified as adet, pronounced /wɔː/. worst is at rank #1,259, tagged as anadj, pronounced /wɜːst/.
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 37275, this pair ranks #295,965 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of wor vs worst
Shared letters: orw. Private to "wor": -. Private to "worst": st.
"wor" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "worst" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- worst ← owrst · worrst · worsst · worstt · worts · wosrt · wrost · wworst