Which to use
“beamed” is an adjective and “bested” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,834
- “beamed” frequency rank
- #40,581
- “bested” frequency rank
- 69415
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | beamed | bested |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Furnished with beams or timbers. | simple past and past participle of best |
Letter map: beamed vs bested
Shared letters muted; letters that set beamed and bested apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.
Grammar separator: beamed vs bested
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: beamed is anadjective and bestedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69415, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
beamed is recorded at frequency rank #28,834, classified as anadj. bested is at rank #40,581, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈbɛstɪd/.
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 69415, this pair ranks #54,653 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of beamed vs bested
Shared letters: bde. Private to "beamed": am. Private to "bested": st.
"beamed" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "bested" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "beamed" and "bested" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "beamed" or "bested" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "beamed" and "bested". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "beamed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bested" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #54,653 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "beamed" and "bested" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bested vs bestie". 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 #54,653 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.