bankedvsbarkedWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: banked is a verb, barked is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“banked” is a verb and “barked” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,831
“banked” frequency rank
#37,333
“barked” frequency rank
66164
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature banked barked
Definition simple past and past participle of bank Having the specified kind of bark.

Letter map: banked vs barked

Shared letters muted; letters that set banked and barked apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

6 ch
banked
6 ch
barked

Part-of-speech tell for banked / barked

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: banked is averb and barkedanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “banked” becomes r in “barked”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

banked is recorded at frequency rank #28,831, classified as averb, pronounced /bæŋkt/. barked is at rank #37,333, tagged as anadj.

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 66164, this pair ranks #69,296 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of banked vs barked

Shared letters: abdek. Private to "banked": n. Private to "barked": r.

"banked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "barked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bankedabnked · bakned · banekd · bankde · bankedd · bankked · bannked · bbanked
  • barkedabrked · bakred · barekd · barkde · barkedd · barkked · barrked · bbarked

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "banked" and "barked" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "banked" is a verb and "barked" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "banked" or "barked"?
"banked" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,831 in our English list, against #37,333 for "barked". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "banked" and "barked". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "banked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "barked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,296 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "banked" and "barked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "barked vs blanked". 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 #69,296 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list