Which to use
“advise” is a verb and “advised” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,111
- “advise” frequency rank
- #5,288
- “advised” frequency rank
- 11399
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | advise | advised |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To give advice to; to offer an opinion to, as worthy or expedient to be followed. | Considered or thought out; resulting from deliberation. |
Where the eye mixes advise and advised
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between advise and advised
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: advise is /ədˈvaɪz/ while advised is /ədˈvaɪzd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “advise” sits inside “advised”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11399, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
advise is recorded at frequency rank #6,111, classified as averb, pronounced /ədˈvaɪz/. advised is at rank #5,288, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ədˈvaɪzd/.
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 11399, this pair ranks #487,258 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of advise vs advised
Shared letters: adeisv. Private to "advise": -. Private to "advised": -.
"advise" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "advised" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "advise" for "advised" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "advise" or "advised" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "advise" and "advised" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "advise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "advised" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #487,258 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "advise" and "advised" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Advil vs advise". 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 #487,258 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.