woodyvswordWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: woody is a adjective, word is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“woody” is an adjective and “word” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,285
“woody” frequency rank
#13,941
“word” frequency rank
29226
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature woody word
Definition Boisé, vieilli dans un fût en bois. Mot.

Letter map: woody vs word

Shared letters muted; letters that set woody and word apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. woody runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against word's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
woody
4 ch
word

Grammar separator: woody vs word

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: woody is anadjective and wordanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29226, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

woody is recorded at frequency rank #15,285, classified as anadj. word is at rank #13,941, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈwɝd\.

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 29226, this pair ranks #317,971 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of woody vs word

Shared letters: dow. Private to "woody": y. Private to "word": r.

"woody" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "word" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • woodyowody · wodoy · wody · wooddy · woodyy · wooyd · wwoody
  • wordowrd · wodr · wordd · worrd · wrod · wword

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "woody" for "word" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "woody" is an adjective and "word" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "woody" or "word" show up more?
"word" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,941 in our French list, against #15,285 for "woody". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "woody" vs "word" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "woody" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "word" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #317,971 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "woody" and "word" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wola vs word". 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 #317,971 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