Which to use
“young” is an adjective and “Youngs” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #364
- “young” frequency rank
- #49,155
- “Youngs” frequency rank
- 49519
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | young | Youngs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | In the early part of growth or life; born not long ago. | A surname. |
Letter map: young vs Youngs
Shared letters muted; letters that set young and Youngs apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. young runs 5 letters (VVVCC) against Youngs's 6 (VVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - young and Youngs
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: young is anadjective and Youngsaname. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “young” sits inside “Youngs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
young is recorded at frequency rank #364, classified as anadj, pronounced /jʌŋ/. 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 49519, this pair ranks #182,807 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of young vs Youngs
Shared letters: gnouy. Private to "young": -. Private to "Youngs": s.
"young" · 5 letters · shape VVVCC · "Youngs" · 6 letters · shape VVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "young" for "Youngs" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "young" or "Youngs" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "young" and "Youngs". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "young" 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 #182,807 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "young" 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 #182,807 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.