yrvsyuWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: yr is a determiner, yu is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“yr” is a determiner and “yu” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,838
“yr” frequency rank
#8,109
“yu” frequency rank
17947
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature yr yu
Definition Abbreviation of your. An ancient Chinese wine-bucket, often having a decorative cover.

Letter map: yr vs yu

Shared letters muted; letters that set yr and yu apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
yr
2 ch
yu

Part-of-speech tell for yr / yu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: yr is adeterminer and yuanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - r in “yr” becomes u in “yu”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17947, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

yr is recorded at frequency rank #9,838, classified as adet. yu is at rank #8,109, tagged as anoun, pronounced /juː/.

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 17947, this pair ranks #448,138 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of yr vs yu

Shared letters: y. Private to "yr": r. Private to "yu": u.

"yr" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "yu" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "yr" and "yu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "yr" is a determiner and "yu" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "yr" or "yu" show up more?
"yu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,109 in our English list, against #9,838 for "yr". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "yr" and "yu".

  • Full dictionary entry for "yr" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "yu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #448,138 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "yr" and "yu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Yau vs yr". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #448,138 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