blazevsblazesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#11,346
“blaze” frequency rank
#37,827
“blazes” frequency rank
49173
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blaze blazes
Definition A fire, especially a fast-burning fire producing a lot of flames and light. plural of blaze

Where the eye mixes blaze and blazes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
blaze
6 ch
blazes

Why the eye confuses blaze with blazes

A purely visual mix-up. blaze (/bleɪz/) and blazes (/ˈbleɪzɪz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “blaze” sits inside “blazes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49173, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blaze is recorded at frequency rank #11,346, classified as anoun, pronounced /bleɪz/. blazes is at rank #37,827, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbleɪzɪz/.

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 49173, this pair ranks #186,100 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of blaze vs blazes

Shared letters: abelz. Private to "blaze": -. Private to "blazes": s.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blazebalze · bblaze · blaez · blazze · bllaze · blzae · lbaze
  • blazesbalzes · bblazes · blaezs · blazess · blazse · blazzes · bllazes · blzaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "blaze" and "blazes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/bleɪz/ versus /ˈbleɪzɪz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "blaze" vs "blazes" - which ranks higher?
"blaze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,346 in our English list, against #37,827 for "blazes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "blaze" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blazes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,100 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blaze" and "blazes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bladed vs blazes". 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 #186,100 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