Which to use
“center” and “century” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #649
- “center” frequency rank
- #1,011
- “century” frequency rank
- 1660
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | center | century |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The point in the interior of a circle that is equidistant from all points on the circumference. | A period of one hundred consecutive years; often specifically a numbered period with conventional start and end dates, e.g., the twentieth century, which stretches from (strictly) 1901 through 2000, or (informally) 1900 through 1999. The first century AD was from 1 to 100. |
Where the eye mixes center and century
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. center (/ˈsɛn.tə(ɹ)/) and century (/ˈsɛnt͡ʃʊɹi/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1660, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
center is recorded at frequency rank #649, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛn.tə(ɹ)/. century is at rank #1,011, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɛnt͡ʃʊɹi/.
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 1660, this pair ranks #526,955 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of center vs century
Shared letters: cenrt. Private to "center": -. Private to "century": uy.
"center" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "century" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV