barkedvsblackedTell them apart

Which to use

“barked” and “blacked” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#37,333
“barked” frequency rank
#20,571
“blacked” frequency rank
57904
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature barked blacked
Definition Having the specified kind of bark. Colored black.

Letter map: barked vs blacked

Shared letters muted; letters that set barked and blacked apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. barked runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against blacked's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
barked
7 ch
blacked

Pair insight - barked / blacked

barked and blacked are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57904, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

barked is recorded at frequency rank #37,333, classified as anadj. blacked is at rank #20,571, tagged as anadj, pronounced /blækt/.

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 57904, this pair ranks #116,129 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of barked vs blacked

Shared letters: abdek. Private to "barked": r. Private to "blacked": cl.

"barked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "blacked" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • barked ← abrked · bakred · barekd · barkde · barkedd · barkked · barrked · bbarked
  • blacked ← balcked · bblacked · blaccked · blacekd · blackde · blackedd · blackked · blakced

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "barked" and "blacked" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "barked" vs "blacked" - which ranks higher?
"blacked" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,571 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 "barked" and "blacked". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "barked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blacked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #116,129 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "barked" and "blacked" 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 #116,129 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