worvsworthWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: wor is a determiner, worth is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wor” is a determiner and “worth” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,016
“wor” frequency rank
#726
“worth” frequency rank
36742
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wor worth
Definition Our. Having a value of; proper to be exchanged for.

Where the eye mixes wor and worth

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. wor runs 3 letters (CVC) against worth's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
wor
5 ch
worth

Look-alike desk: wor vs worth

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wor is /wɔː/ while worth is /wɜːθ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “wor” sits inside “worth”, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36742, 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/. worth is at rank #726, tagged as anadj, pronounced /wɜːθ/.

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 36742, this pair ranks #300,549 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wor vs worth

Shared letters: orw. Private to "wor": -. Private to "worth": ht.

"wor" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "worth" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • worth ← owrth · worht · worrth · worthh · wortth · wotrh · wroth · wworth

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wor" for "worth" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wor" is a determiner and "worth" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wor" vs "worth" - which ranks higher?
"worth" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #726 in our English list, against #36,016 for "wor". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "worth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #300,549 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wor" and "worth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wor 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 #300,549 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