Use wear for putting clothes on, or for something getting worn down through use, and ware for goods made to be sold, usually as wares. Memory hook: wear has ear and earrings are things you wear, while ware sits inside software and hardware, which are things sold.
The core difference
Wear is the everyday verb for clothing and use; ware is a noun for goods for sale.
- wear — to have clothing on, or to erode with use: She always wears a scarf in winter.
- wear — also to hold up under use: This fabric wears well even after years of washing.
- ware — goods made for sale, often plural: Traders came from miles around to sell their wares.
How to tell them apart
Wear is very common and irregular: wear, wore, worn. It also works as a noun in phrases like outdoor wear. Ware is much rarer on its own and mostly appears as wares, or inside compounds such as hardware, silverware and software.
The mix-up shows up in shop and clothing contexts, for example footware and menswear. For clothing, the standard spelling is footwear and menswear, with wear. In older or dialect use, ware can also mean wary, as in Ware the dog!, but you will rarely need that.
