bladedvsblazeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: bladed is a adjective, blaze is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bladed” is an adjective and “blaze” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,019
“bladed” frequency rank
#11,346
“blaze” frequency rank
52365
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bladed blaze
Definition Having a blade; having the specified number or type of blades. A fire, especially a fast-burning fire producing a lot of flames and light.

Where the eye mixes bladed and blaze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bladed runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against blaze's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
bladed
5 ch
blaze

Why the eye confuses bladed with blaze

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: bladed is /ˈbleɪdɪd/ while blaze is /bleɪz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52365, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bladed is recorded at frequency rank #41,019, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈbleɪdɪd/. blaze is at rank #11,346, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bleɪz/.

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 52365, this pair ranks #157,666 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bladed vs blaze

Shared letters: abel. Private to "bladed": d. Private to "blaze": z.

"bladed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "blaze" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bladed ← balded · bbladed · bladded · bladedd · blaedd · bldaed · blladed · lbaded
  • blaze ← balze · bblaze · blaez · blazze · bllaze · blzae · lbaze

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bladed" for "blaze" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bladed" is an adjective and "blaze" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "bladed" or "blaze"?
"blaze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,346 in our English list, against #41,019 for "bladed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bladed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blaze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #157,666 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bladed" and "blaze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bladed 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 #157,666 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