Which to use
“brained” is an adjective and “bruised” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,558
- “brained” frequency rank
- #17,310
- “bruised” frequency rank
- 59868
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | brained | bruised |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a particular kind or number of brain. | simple past and past participle of bruise |
Where the eye mixes brained and bruised
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: brained vs bruised
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: brained is /bɹeɪnd/ while bruised is /bɹuːzd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59868, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
brained is recorded at frequency rank #42,558, classified as anadj, pronounced /bɹeɪnd/. bruised is at rank #17,310, tagged as averb, pronounced /bɹuːzd/.
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 59868, this pair ranks #103,615 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of brained vs bruised
Shared letters: bdeir. Private to "brained": an. Private to "bruised": su.
"brained" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC · "bruised" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "brained" for "bruised" ever safe?
Frequency check: "brained" vs "bruised" - which ranks higher?
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 "brained" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bruised" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #103,615 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "brained" and "bruised" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brained vs brainy". 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 #103,615 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.