What is the difference between word and WORD motions in Vim?

Explanation

Vim distinguishes between "words" (sequences of keyword characters) and "WORDS" (sequences of non-blank characters). The uppercase motions W, B, E move by WORDS, which are faster for skipping over punctuation-heavy text like paths, URLs, and code.

How it works

• w — move to next word start (stops at punctuation boundaries)
• W — move to next WORD start (stops only at whitespace)
• b/B — move back by word/WORD
• e/E — move to end of word/WORD
• A "word" is [a-zA-Z0-9_]+, a "WORD" is [^ \t]+

Example

Text: file-name.txt /usr/local/bin http://example.com

Using w (word): file|-|name|.|txt| |/|usr|/|local|/|bin
Using W (WORD): file-name.txt| |/usr/local/bin| |http://example.com

Tips

• W is much faster for navigating code with dashes, dots, slashes, colons
• dW deletes an entire path or URL in one motion
• cW changes a hyphenated-word without stopping at the hyphen
• Use w for precise word-level editing, W for fast horizontal movement
• iW and aW are the text object versions: ciW changes an entire WORD