Which to use
“wick” and “wish” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,105
- “wick” frequency rank
- #25,858
- “wish” frequency rank
- 63963
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wick | wish |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mèche (d’une bougie). | Vœu, gré. |
Where the eye mixes wick and wish
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between wick and wish
A purely visual mix-up. wick (\wɪk\) and wish (\wɪʃ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63963, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wick is recorded at frequency rank #38,105, classified as anoun, pronounced \wɪk\. wish is at rank #25,858, tagged as anoun, pronounced \wɪʃ\.
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 63963, this pair ranks #79,341 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of wick vs wish
Shared letters: iw. Private to "wick": ck. Private to "wish": hs.
"wick" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "wish" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "wick" and "wish" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "wick" or "wish" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "wick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "wish" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #79,341 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wick" and "wish" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wick vs wink". 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 #79,341 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.