ow
[ˈaʊ]
The verdict
“ow” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #27,553) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #27,553
- frequency rank, French
- 1,642
- “O” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Aïe.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ow · ow · French
ow · rank #27,553 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #27,553
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,642
- PHOTO-FINISH Pandora
Nearest frequency peer: Pandora (+1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “ow”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- orbites
orbites
72,451 corpus weight
- ottomane
ottomane
72,450 corpus weight
- ow
ow
72,448 corpus weight
- Pandora
Pandora
72,447 corpus weight
- pantoufles
pantoufles
72,446 corpus weight
- paraîtra
paraîtra
72,445 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “ow” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | ow |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | [ˈaʊ] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #27,553 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “ow” se place dans la fréquence du français
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ow is neighbouring look-alikes ("ox", "oy", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced [ˈaʊ]. Frequency #27,553 among 1,642 “O” headwords. Gloss: "Aïe.".
ow has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ox", "oy", "own", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is ow, spelled O-W.
Definition
- 1Aïe.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "ow"?
What does "ow" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "ow"?
How do you pronounce "ow"?
What language does "ow" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
What to do next
You've looked up "ow". Here's where to go from here.
- "ow" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "ox". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #27,553 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "O" letter cohort. O–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.