Which to use
“brood” and “broth” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,863
- “brood” frequency rank
- #17,309
- “broth” frequency rank
- 38172
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | brood | broth |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The young of certain animals, especially a group of young birds or fowl hatched at one time by the same mother. | Water in which food (meat, vegetable, etc.) has been boiled. |
Where the eye mixes brood and broth
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. brood (CCVVC) and broth (CCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses brood with broth
A purely visual mix-up. brood (/bɹuːd/) and broth (/bɹɔθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38172, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
brood is recorded at frequency rank #20,863, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɹuːd/. broth is at rank #17,309, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bɹɔθ/.
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 38172, this pair ranks #288,229 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of brood vs broth
Shared letters: bor. Private to "brood": d. Private to "broth": ht.
"brood" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "broth" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "brood" and "broth" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "brood" vs "broth" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "brood" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "broth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #288,229 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "brood" and "broth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "broth vs brut". 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 #288,229 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.