you'svsyoungConfusable pair

Quick tell: you's is a contraction, young is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“you's” is a contraction and “young” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,483
“you's” frequency rank
#364
“young” frequency rank
41847
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature you's young
Definition Contraction of you + is. In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago.

Letter map: you's vs young

Shared letters muted; letters that set you's and young apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. you's runs 4 letters (VVVC) against young's 5 (VVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
you's
5 ch
young

Grammar separator: you's vs young

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: you's is acontraction and younganadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41847, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

you's is recorded at frequency rank #41,483, classified as acontraction. young is at rank #364, tagged as anadj, pronounced /jʌŋ/.

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 41847, this pair ranks #254,596 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of you's vs young

Shared letters: ouy. Private to "you's": s. Private to "young": gn.

"you's" · 4 letters · shape VVVC  ·  "young" · 5 letters · shape VVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • young ← oyung · yonug · yougn · youngg · younng · yuong · yyoung

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "you's" and "young" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "you's" is a contraction and "young" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "you's" or "young" show up more?
"young" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #364 in our English list, against #41,483 for "you's". 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 "you's" and "young". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "you's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "young" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #254,596 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "you's" and "young" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "you's 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 #254,596 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