Which to use
“conducive” and “conductive” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #21,166
- “conducive” frequency rank
- #26,729
- “conductive” frequency rank
- 47895
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | conducive | conductive |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tending to contribute to, encourage, or bring about some result. | Able to conduct electrical current or heat. |
Where the eye mixes conducive and conductive
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. conducive runs 9 letters (CVCCVCVCV) against conductive's 10 (CVCCVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: conducive vs conductive
A purely visual mix-up. conducive (/kənˈdjuːsɪv/) and conductive (/kənˈdʌktɪv/) 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 47895, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
conducive is recorded at frequency rank #21,166, classified as anadj, pronounced /kənˈdjuːsɪv/. conductive is at rank #26,729, tagged as anadj, pronounced /kənˈdʌktɪv/.
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 47895, this pair ranks #198,156 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of conducive vs conductive
Shared letters: cdeinouv. Private to "conducive": -. Private to "conductive": t.
"conducive" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV · "conductive" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- conducive ← cconducive · cnoducive · codnucive · condcuive · condducive · conduccive · conduciev · conducivve
- conductive ← cconductive · cnoductive · codnuctive · condcutive · condductive · conducctive · conducitve · conductiev
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "conducive" and "conductive" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "conducive" or "conductive" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "conducive" and "conductive" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "conducive" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "conductive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #198,156 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "conducive" and "conductive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conductive vs convective". 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 #198,156 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.