WormsvsworthWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#9,988
“Worms” frequency rank
#726
“worth” frequency rank
10714
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Worms worth
Definition An independent town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Having a value of; proper to be exchanged for.

Where the eye mixes Worms and worth

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Worms
5 ch
worth

Look-alike desk: Worms vs worth

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Worms is /vɔːmz/ while worth is /wɜːθ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10714, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Worms is recorded at frequency rank #9,988, classified as aname, pronounced /vɔːmz/. 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 10714, this pair ranks #490,898 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Worms vs worth

Shared letters: orw. Private to "Worms": ms. Private to "worth": ht.

"Worms" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "worth" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wormsowrms · womrs · wormms · wormss · worrms · worsm · wroms · wworms
  • worthowrth · worht · worrth · worthh · wortth · wotrh · wroth · wworth

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Worms" for "worth" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Worms" is a name and "worth" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Worms" or "worth" show up more?
"worth" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #726 in our English list, against #9,988 for "Worms". 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 "Worms" and "worth" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Worms" 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 #490,898 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Worms" and "worth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wordy vs Worms". 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 #490,898 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