worvswoveTell them apart

Quick tell: wor is a determiner, wove is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#36,016
“wor” frequency rank
#49,728
“wove” frequency rank
85744
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wor wove
Definition Our. simple past of weave

Where the eye mixes wor and wove

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. wor runs 3 letters (CVC) against wove's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
wor
4 ch
wove

Look-alike desk: wor vs wove

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wor is /wɔː/ while wove is /wəʊv/. 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 (determiner vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85744, 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/. wove is at rank #49,728, tagged as averb, pronounced /wəʊv/.

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 85744, this pair ranks #9,918 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of wor vs wove

Shared letters: ow. Private to "wor": r. Private to "wove": ev.

"wor" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "wove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wove ← owve · woev · wovve · wvoe · wwove

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wor" and "wove" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wor" is a determiner and "wove" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wor" vs "wove" - which ranks higher?
"wor" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,016 in our English list, against #49,728 for "wove". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "wove" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,918 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wor" and "wove" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wile 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 #9,918 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