Which to use
“align” and “aligned” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,359
- “align” frequency rank
- #9,560
- “aligned” frequency rank
- 21919
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | align | aligned |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To form a line; to fall into line. | simple past and past participle of align |
Where the eye mixes align and aligned
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between align and aligned
A purely visual mix-up. align (/əˈlaɪn/) and aligned (/əˈlaɪnd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “align” sits inside “aligned”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21919, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
align is recorded at frequency rank #12,359, classified as averb, pronounced /əˈlaɪn/. aligned is at rank #9,560, tagged as averb, pronounced /əˈlaɪnd/.
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 21919, this pair ranks #420,401 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of align vs aligned
Shared letters: agiln. Private to "align": -. Private to "aligned": de.
"align" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC · "aligned" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "align" and "aligned" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "align" or "aligned" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "align" and "aligned" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "align" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "aligned" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #420,401 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "align" and "aligned" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "algo vs align". 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 #420,401 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.