Which to use
“you” and “yours” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11
- “you” frequency rank
- #1,849
- “yours” frequency rank
- 1860
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | you | yours |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The people spoken, or written to, as an object. | That or those belonging to you; the possessive second-person singular pronoun used without a following noun. |
Where the eye mixes you and yours
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses you with yours
A purely visual mix-up. you (/ju/) and yours (/jɔː(ɹ)z/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “you” sits inside “yours”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1860, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
you is recorded at frequency rank #11, classified as apron, pronounced /ju/. 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 1860, this pair ranks #526,461 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of you vs yours
Shared letters: ouy. Private to "you": -. Private to "yours": rs.
"you" · 3 letters · shape VVV · "yours" · 5 letters · shape VVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- yours ← oyurs · yorus · yourrs · yourss · yousr · yuors · yyours
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "you" and "yours" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "you" or "yours"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "you" and "yours" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "you" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "yours" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #526,461 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "you" and "yours" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Youngs vs yours". 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 #526,461 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.