yongvsYoungsTell them apart

Quick tell: yong is a adjective, Youngs is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#16,835
“yong” frequency rank
#49,155
“Youngs” frequency rank
65990
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature yong Youngs
Definition Obsolete spelling of young. A surname.

Letter map: yong vs Youngs

Shared letters muted; letters that set yong and Youngs apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. yong runs 4 letters (VVCC) against Youngs's 6 (VVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
yong
6 ch
Youngs

Grammar separator: yong vs Youngs

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: yong is anadjective and Youngsaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

yong is recorded at frequency rank #16,835, classified as anadj. Youngs is at rank #49,155, 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 65990, this pair ranks #70,132 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of yong vs Youngs

Shared letters: gnoy. Private to "yong": -. Private to "Youngs": su.

"yong" · 4 letters · shape VVCC  ·  "Youngs" · 6 letters · shape VVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • yong ← oyng · ynog · yogn · yongg · yonng · yyong
  • Youngs ← oyungs · yonugs · yougns · younggs · youngss · younngs · younsg · yuongs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "yong" and "Youngs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "yong" is an adjective and "Youngs" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "yong" vs "Youngs" - which ranks higher?
"yong" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,835 in our English list, against #49,155 for "Youngs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "yong" and "Youngs". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "yong" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Youngs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,132 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "yong" and "Youngs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Yonge vs Youngs". 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 #70,132 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