Which to use
“commence” and “commenced” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,119
- “commence” frequency rank
- #9,861
- “commenced” frequency rank
- 22980
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | commence | commenced |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To begin, start. | simple past and past participle of commence |
Where the eye mixes commence and commenced
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between commence and commenced
A purely visual mix-up. commence (/kəˈmɛns/) and commenced (/kəˈmɛnst/) 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 extra letter(s) - “commence” sits inside “commenced”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
commence is recorded at frequency rank #13,119, classified as averb, pronounced /kəˈmɛns/. commenced is at rank #9,861, tagged as averb, pronounced /kəˈmɛnst/.
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 22980, this pair ranks #412,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of commence vs commenced
Shared letters: cemno. Private to "commence": -. Private to "commenced": d.
"commence" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV · "commenced" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "commence" and "commenced" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "commence" or "commenced" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "commence" and "commenced" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "commence" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "commenced" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #412,612 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "commence" and "commenced" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "commence vs commenter". 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 #412,612 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.