Which to use
“engender” is a verb and “extender” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #45,358
- “engender” frequency rank
- #42,632
- “extender” frequency rank
- 87990
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | engender | extender |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To beget (of a man); to bear or conceive (of a woman). | One who extends. |
Letter map: engender vs extender
Shared letters muted; letters that set engender and extender apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for engender / extender
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: engender is averb and extenderanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 87990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
engender is recorded at frequency rank #45,358, classified as averb, pronounced /ɪnˈdʒɛn.də/. extender is at rank #42,632, tagged as anoun.
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 87990, this pair ranks #6,912 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of engender vs extender
Shared letters: denr. Private to "engender": g. Private to "extender": tx.
"engender" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC · "extender" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "engender" for "extender" ever safe?
Which is more common, "engender" or "extender"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "engender" and "extender". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "engender" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "extender" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #6,912 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "engender" and "extender" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "engender vs engendered". 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 #6,912 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.