Which to use
“work” is a noun and “worse” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #116
- “work” frequency rank
- #1,381
- “worse” frequency rank
- 1497
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | work | worse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Employment. | comparative form of bad: more bad |
Where the eye mixes work and worse
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: work is /wɜː(ɹ)k/ while worse is /wɜːs/. 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 1497, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
work is recorded at frequency rank #116, classified as anoun, pronounced /wɜː(ɹ)k/. worse is at rank #1,381, tagged as anadj, pronounced /wɜːs/.
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 1497, this pair ranks #527,312 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of work vs worse
Shared letters: orw. Private to "work": k. Private to "worse": es.
"work" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "worse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV