warsvsworksWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“wars” and “works” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#7,261
“wars” frequency rank
#28,411
“works” frequency rank
35672
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wars works
Definition Pluriel de war. Pluriel de work (« travail, œuvre »).

Where the eye mixes wars and works

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
wars
5 ch
works

Visual trap between wars and works

A purely visual mix-up. wars (\wɔɹz\) and works (\ˈwɝks\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35672, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wars is recorded at frequency rank #7,261, classified as anoun, pronounced \wɔɹz\. works is at rank #28,411, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈwɝks\.

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 35672, this pair ranks #275,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wars vs works

Shared letters: rsw. Private to "wars": a. Private to "works": ko.

"wars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "works" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • warsawrs · warrs · warss · wasr · wras · wwars
  • worksowrks · wokrs · workks · workss · worrks · worsk · wroks · wworks

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wars" for "works" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\wɔɹz\ versus \ˈwɝks\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "wars" or "works"?
"wars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,261 in our French list, against #28,411 for "works". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wars" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "works" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #275,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wars" and "works" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "weeks vs works". 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 #275,063 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