Which to use
“fiend” and “friend” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,384
- “fiend” frequency rank
- #420
- “friend” frequency rank
- 25804
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fiend | friend |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A devil or demon; a malignant or diabolical being; an evil spirit. | A person, typically someone other than a family member, spouse or lover, whose company one enjoys and towards whom one feels affection. |
Where the eye mixes fiend and friend
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. fiend (/fiːnd/) and friend (/fɹɛnd/) 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 25804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fiend is recorded at frequency rank #25,384, classified as anoun, pronounced /fiːnd/. friend is at rank #420, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɹɛnd/.
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 25804, this pair ranks #391,480 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fiend vs friend
Shared letters: defin. Private to "fiend": -. Private to "friend": r.
"fiend" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "friend" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC