omvsownConfusable pair

Quick tell: om is a pronoun, own is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“om” is a pronoun and “own” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,092
“om” frequency rank
#23,632
“own” frequency rank
30724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature om own
Definition On. Propre, qui appartient à.

Letter map: om vs own

Shared letters muted; letters that set om and own apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch
om
3 ch
own

Part-of-speech tell for om / own

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: om is apronoun and ownanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

om is recorded at frequency rank #7,092, classified as apron. own is at rank #23,632, tagged as anadj, pronounced \oʊn\.

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 30724, this pair ranks #308,370 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of om vs own

Shared letters: o. Private to "om": m. Private to "own": nw.

"om" · 2 letters · shape VC  ·  "own" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "om" for "own" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "om" is a pronoun and "own" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "om" or "own"?
"om" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,092 in our French list, against #23,632 for "own". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "om" vs "own" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "om" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "own" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #308,370 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "om" and "own" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "och vs own". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #308,370 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list