Which to use
“wove” is a verb and “woven” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,728
- “wove” frequency rank
- #13,844
- “woven” frequency rank
- 63572
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wove | woven |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past of weave | Fabricated by weaving. |
Where the eye mixes wove and woven
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. wove runs 4 letters (CVCV) against woven's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses wove with woven
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wove is /wəʊv/ while woven is /ˈwəʊ.vən/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “wove” sits inside “woven”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wove is recorded at frequency rank #49,728, classified as averb, pronounced /wəʊv/. woven is at rank #13,844, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈwəʊ.vən/.
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 63572, this pair ranks #82,236 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of wove vs woven
Shared letters: eovw. Private to "wove": -. Private to "woven": n.
"wove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "woven" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "wove" and "woven" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "wove" or "woven" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "wove" and "woven" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "wove" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "woven" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #82,236 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wove" and "woven" 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 #82,236 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.