worryvsWrayConfusable pair

Quick tell: worry is a verb, Wray is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“worry” is a verb and “Wray” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,548
“worry” frequency rank
#32,658
“Wray” frequency rank
34206
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature worry Wray
Definition To be troubled; to give way to mental anxiety or doubt. A village in Wray-with-Botton parish, City of Lancaster district, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD6067).

Letter map: worry vs Wray

Shared letters muted; letters that set worry and Wray apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
worry
4 ch
Wray

Role in the sentence - worry and Wray

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: worry is averb and Wrayaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34206, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

worry is recorded at frequency rank #1,548, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈwʌ.ɹi/. Wray is at rank #32,658, tagged as aname.

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 34206, this pair ranks #322,758 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of worry vs Wray

Shared letters: rwy. Private to "worry": o. Private to "Wray": a.

"worry" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Wray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • worryowrry · worryy · wory · woryr · wrory · wworry
  • Wrayrway · wrayy · wrray · wrya · wwray

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "worry" for "Wray" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "worry" is a verb and "Wray" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "worry" vs "Wray" - which ranks higher?
"worry" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,548 in our English list, against #32,658 for "Wray". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "worry" and "Wray". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "worry" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #322,758 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "worry" and "Wray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wordy vs Wray". 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 #322,758 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