broganvsbrokenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: brogan is a noun, broken is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“brogan” is a noun and “broken” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,352
“brogan” frequency rank
#1,387
“broken” frequency rank
47739
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brogan broken
Definition A heavy working shoe; a brogue. past participle of break

Letter map: brogan vs broken

Shared letters muted; letters that set brogan and broken apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. brogan and broken follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
brogan
6 ch
broken

Role in the sentence - brogan and broken

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: brogan is anoun and brokenaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47739, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brogan is recorded at frequency rank #46,352, classified as anoun. broken is at rank #1,387, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈbɹəʊ.kn̩/.

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 47739, this pair ranks #199,664 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of brogan vs broken

Shared letters: bnor. Private to "brogan": ag. Private to "broken": ek.

"brogan" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "broken" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brogan ← bbrogan · borgan · brgoan · broagn · brogann · broggan · brogna · brrogan
  • broken ← bbroken · borken · brkoen · broekn · brokenn · brokken · brokne · brroken

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "brogan" for "broken" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "brogan" is a noun and "broken" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "brogan" or "broken"?
"broken" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,387 in our English list, against #46,352 for "brogan". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "brogan" vs "broken" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "brogan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "broken" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #199,664 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brogan" and "broken" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bogan vs brogan". 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 #199,664 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