Which to use
“barked” is an adjective and “bathed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,333
- “barked” frequency rank
- #24,389
- “bathed” frequency rank
- 61722
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | barked | bathed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having the specified kind of bark. | simple past and past participle of bathe |
Letter map: barked vs bathed
Shared letters muted; letters that set barked and bathed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. barked and bathed follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for barked / bathed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: barked is anadjective and bathedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61722, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
barked is recorded at frequency rank #37,333, classified as anadj. bathed is at rank #24,389, tagged as averb, pronounced /beɪðd/.
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 61722, this pair ranks #92,596 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of barked vs bathed
Shared letters: abde. Private to "barked": kr. Private to "bathed": ht.
"barked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "bathed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "barked" and "bathed" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "barked" or "bathed" show up more?
After this comparison
Pair "barked" vs "bathed" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "barked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bathed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #92,596 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "barked" and "bathed" 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 #92,596 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.