WindvswoodWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#26,224
“Wind” frequency rank
#17,040
“wood” frequency rank
43264
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Wind wood
Definition Vent. Bois, substance dure et fibreuse des arbres.

Where the eye mixes Wind and wood

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Wind (CVCC) and wood (CVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
Wind
4 ch
wood

Look-alike desk: Wind vs wood

A purely visual mix-up. Wind (\vɪnt\) and wood (\wʊd\) 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 43264, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Wind is recorded at frequency rank #26,224, classified as anoun, pronounced \vɪnt\. wood is at rank #17,040, tagged as anoun, pronounced \wʊd\.

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 43264, this pair ranks #219,437 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Wind vs wood

Shared letters: dw. Private to "Wind": in. Private to "wood": o.

"Wind" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "wood" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wind ← iwnd · widn · windd · winnd · wnid · wwind
  • wood ← owod · wod · wodo · woodd · wwood

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Wind" and "wood" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\vɪnt\ versus \wʊd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Wind" vs "wood" - which ranks higher?
"wood" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,040 in our French list, against #26,224 for "Wind". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "Wind" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wood" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #219,437 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Wind" and "wood" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Wind 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 #219,437 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