WrayvswritWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#32,658
“Wray” frequency rank
#19,743
“writ” frequency rank
52401
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Wray writ
Definition A village in Wray-with-Botton parish, City of Lancaster district, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD6067). A written order, issued by a court, ordering someone to do (or stop doing) something.

Letter map: Wray vs writ

Shared letters muted; letters that set Wray and writ apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Wray
4 ch
writ

Part-of-speech tell for Wray / writ

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Wray is aname and writanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52401, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Wray is recorded at frequency rank #32,658, classified as aname. writ is at rank #19,743, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɹɪt/.

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 52401, this pair ranks #157,346 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Wray vs writ

Shared letters: rw. Private to "Wray": ay. Private to "writ": it.

"Wray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "writ" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wrayrway · wrayy · wrray · wrya · wwray
  • writrwit · wirt · writt · wrrit · wrti · wwrit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Wray" for "writ" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Wray" is a name and "writ" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Wray" or "writ" show up more?
"writ" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,743 in our English list, against #32,658 for "Wray". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Wray" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "writ" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,346 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Wray" and "writ" 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 #157,346 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