Which to use
“drain” is a noun and “drawn” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,353
- “drain” frequency rank
- #2,829
- “drawn” frequency rank
- 9182
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drain | drawn |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A conduit allowing liquid to flow out of an otherwise contained volume; a plughole (UK) | past participle of draw |
Where the eye mixes drain and drawn
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between drain and drawn
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drain is /dɹeɪn/ while drawn is /dɹɔːn/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - i in “drain” becomes w in “drawn”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9182, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drain is recorded at frequency rank #6,353, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɹeɪn/. drawn is at rank #2,829, tagged as averb, pronounced /dɹɔːn/.
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 9182, this pair ranks #498,705 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of drain vs drawn
Shared letters: adnr. Private to "drain": i. Private to "drawn": w.
"drain" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "drawn" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "drain" and "drawn" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "drain" or "drawn"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "drain" and "drawn" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "drain" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drawn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #498,705 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drain" and "drawn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Darrin vs drain". 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 #498,705 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.