warvsworkWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: war is a verb, work is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“war” is a verb and “work” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,265
“war” frequency rank
#6,253
“work” frequency rank
11518
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature war work
Definition primeira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo sein trabalho

Letter map: war vs work

Shared letters muted; letters that set war and work apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
war
4 ch
work

Role in the sentence - war and work

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: war is averb and workanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11518, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

war is recorded at frequency rank #5,265, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈvaːɐ̯/. work is at rank #6,253, tagged as anoun.

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 11518, this pair ranks #61,311 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of war vs work

Shared letters: rw. Private to "war": a. Private to "work": ko.

"war" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "work" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • workowrk · wokr · workk · worrk · wrok · wwork

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "war" for "work" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "war" is a verb and "work" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "war" vs "work" - which ranks higher?
"war" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,265 in our Portuguese list, against #6,253 for "work". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "war" and "work".

  • Full dictionary entry for "war" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "work" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,311 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "war" and "work" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "war vs watt". 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 #61,311 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list