whore
/hɔː/
"whore" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whore” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,877 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,877
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Synonym of prostitute: a person (especially a woman) who offers sexual services for payment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | whore |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /hɔː/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #8,877 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “whore” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for whore is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hɔː/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,877 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for whore, with forms such as "hwore", "whhore", and "whoer". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "woe", "wor", "work", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hore, from Old English hōre, from Proto-Germanic *hōrǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ros (“loved”), from *keh₂- (“to wish; desire”). Cognate with Dutch hoer, German Hure, Old Norse hóra as well as Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear”), Latin cā… The correct English form is whore, spelled W-H-O-R-E.
Definition
- 1Synonym of prostitute: a person (especially a woman) who offers sexual services for payment.
- 2A person who is sexually promiscuous; a slut.
- 3A person who is unscrupulous, especially one who compromises their principles for gain.
- 4A person who will violate behavioral standards to achieve something desired.
- 5A contemptible person.
Etymology
From Middle English hore, from Old English hōre, from Proto-Germanic *hōrǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₂ros (“loved”), from *keh₂- (“to wish; desire”). Cognate with Dutch hoer, German Hure, Old Norse hóra as well as Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear”), Latin cārus (“dear, expensive”), and Irish cara (“friend”). The unetymological spelling with wh- superficially denotes a formerly standard pronunciation with an excrescent /w/ (such as in whole), but such a form is hardly found in either commentators on Early Modern English pronunciations or records of traditional dialects (which both explicitly mention its rarity or absence), therefore leaving the spelling somewhat inexplicable. However, this may be because such a excrescent /w/ was absorbed by a following /uː/ (as in words with etymological /w/ such as whom, two) after it became established in the spelling but before our earliest orthoepic records.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hwore,whhore,whoer,whorre,whroe,wohre,wwhore
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of whore - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “whore”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-H-O-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hɔː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “woe” - see the side-by-side comparison. whore vs woe
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.