Which to use
“wood” and “words” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #17,040
- “wood” frequency rank
- #27,294
- “words” frequency rank
- 44334
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wood | words |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bois, substance dure et fibreuse des arbres. | Pluriel de word. |
Where the eye mixes wood and words
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. wood runs 4 letters (CVVC) against words's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between wood and words
A purely visual mix-up. wood (\wʊd\) and words (\ˈwɝdz\) 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 44334, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wood is recorded at frequency rank #17,040, classified as anoun, pronounced \wʊd\. words is at rank #27,294, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈwɝdz\.
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 44334, this pair ranks #211,209 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of wood vs words
Shared letters: dow. Private to "wood": -. Private to "words": rs.
"wood" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "words" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "wood" for "words" ever safe?
Which is more common, "wood" or "words"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "wood" and "words" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "wood" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "words" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #211,209 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wood" and "words" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "words vs worlds". 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 #211,209 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.