Which to use
“years” is a noun and “yours” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #118
- “years” frequency rank
- #1,849
- “yours” frequency rank
- 1967
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | years | yours |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of year. | That or those belonging to you; the possessive second-person singular pronoun used without a following noun. |
Where the eye mixes years and yours
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: years is /jɪəz/ while yours is /jɔː(ɹ)z/. 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 (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
years is recorded at frequency rank #118, classified as anoun, pronounced /jɪəz/. yours is at rank #1,849, tagged as apron, pronounced /jɔː(ɹ)z/.
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 1967, this pair ranks #526,171 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of years vs yours
Shared letters: rsy. Private to "years": ae. Private to "yours": ou.
"years" · 5 letters · shape VVVCC · "yours" · 5 letters · shape VVVCC