Which to use
“censor” is a noun and “censored” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,034
- “censor” frequency rank
- #17,564
- “censored” frequency rank
- 35598
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | censor | censored |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | One of the two magistrates who originally administered the census of citizens, and by Classical times (between the 8th century B.C.E. and the 6th century C.E.) was a high judge of public behaviour and morality. | Having had objectionable content removed. |
Letter map: censor vs censored
Shared letters muted; letters that set censor and censored apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for censor / censored
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: censor is anoun and censoredanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “censor” sits inside “censored”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
censor is recorded at frequency rank #18,034, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛnsə/. censored is at rank #17,564, tagged as anadj.
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 35598, this pair ranks #310,613 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of censor vs censored
Shared letters: cenors. Private to "censor": -. Private to "censored": d.
"censor" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "censored" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "censor" for "censored" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "censor" or "censored" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "censor" vs "censored" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "censor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "censored" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #310,613 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "censor" and "censored" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "candor vs censor". 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 #310,613 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.