wokvswonWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#41,603
“wok” frequency rank
#28,023
“won” frequency rank
69626
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wok won
Definition Ustensile de cuisson de forme hémisphérique, comparable à, mais plus profond qu'une grande poêle. Unité monétaire de Corée du Sud, divisée en 100 jeons. Son symbole est ₩ (Unicode U+20A9). Son code ISO 4217 est KRW.

Where the eye mixes wok and won

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
wok
3 ch
won

Visual trap between wok and won

A purely visual mix-up. wok (\wɔk\) and won (\wɔn\) 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 a single letter - k in “wok” becomes n in “won”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69626, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wok is recorded at frequency rank #41,603, classified as anoun, pronounced \wɔk\. won is at rank #28,023, tagged as anoun, pronounced \wɔn\.

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 69626, this pair ranks #54,432 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of wok vs won

Shared letters: ow. Private to "wok": k. Private to "won": n.

"wok" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "won" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wok" and "won" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\wɔk\ versus \wɔn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "wok" vs "won" - which ranks higher?
"won" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,023 in our French list, against #41,603 for "wok". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wok" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "won" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,432 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wok" and "won" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wink vs wok". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #54,432 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