Which to use
“drinker” is a noun and “drunken” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #22,958
- “drinker” frequency rank
- #11,883
- “drunken” frequency rank
- 34841
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drinker | drunken |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Agent noun of drink; someone or something that drinks. | past participle of drink |
Where the eye mixes drinker and drunken
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. drinker and drunken follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: drinker vs drunken
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drinker is /ˈdɹɪŋkə(ɹ)/ while drunken is /ˈdɹʌŋkən/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34841, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drinker is recorded at frequency rank #22,958, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɹɪŋkə(ɹ)/. drunken is at rank #11,883, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈdɹʌŋkən/.
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 34841, this pair ranks #317,191 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of drinker vs drunken
Shared letters: deknr. Private to "drinker": i. Private to "drunken": u.
"drinker" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC · "drunken" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "drinker" and "drunken" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "drinker" or "drunken" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "drinker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drunken" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #317,191 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drinker" and "drunken" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drinker vs Drucker". 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 #317,191 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.