curievscursedWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: curie is a noun, cursed is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“curie” is a noun and “cursed” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,599
“curie” frequency rank
#10,028
“cursed” frequency rank
43627
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature curie cursed
Definition 3.7×10¹⁰ decays per second, as a unit of radioactivity. Symbol Ci. Under some divine harm, malady, or other curse.

Letter map: curie vs cursed

Shared letters muted; letters that set curie and cursed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. curie runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against cursed's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
curie
6 ch
cursed

Role in the sentence - curie and cursed

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: curie is anoun and cursedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43627, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

curie is recorded at frequency rank #33,599, classified as anoun. cursed is at rank #10,028, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɜːsɪd/.

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 43627, this pair ranks #238,170 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of curie vs cursed

Shared letters: ceru. Private to "curie": i. Private to "cursed": ds.

"curie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "cursed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • curie ← ccurie · cruie · cuire · curei · ucrie
  • cursed ← ccursed · crused · curesd · currsed · cursde · cursedd · curssed · cusred

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "curie" for "cursed" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "curie" is a noun and "cursed" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "curie" vs "cursed" - which ranks higher?
"cursed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,028 in our English list, against #33,599 for "curie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "curie" and "cursed".

  • Full dictionary entry for "curie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cursed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #238,170 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "curie" and "cursed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "curia vs curie". 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 #238,170 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list