whovswoodWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: who is a pronoun, wood is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“who” is a pronoun and “wood” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,055
“who” frequency rank
#18,745
“wood” frequency rank
23800
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature who wood
Definition que; o qual, os quais, a qual, as quais madeira; lenha

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set who and wood apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

3 ch
who
4 ch
wood

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: who is apronoun and woodanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23800, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

who is recorded at frequency rank #5,055, classified as apron. wood is at rank #18,745, tagged as anoun, pronounced /wʊd/, enPR: wo͝od.

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 23800, this pair ranks #45,944 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of who vs wood

Shared letters: ow. Private to "who": h. Private to "wood": d.

"who" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "wood" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • woodowod · wod · wodo · woodd · wwood

Frequency comparison

who#5,055
wood#18,745

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "who" and "wood" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "who" is a pronoun and "wood" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "who" or "wood"?
"who" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,055 in our Portuguese list, against #18,745 for "wood". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering who vs wood

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a pronoun, it's “who”; for a noun, it's “wood”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “who” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list