Which to use
“fish” is a noun and “fished” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,339
- “fish” frequency rank
- #26,089
- “fished” frequency rank
- 27428
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fish | fished |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A typically cold-blooded vertebrate animal that lives in water, moving with the help of fins and breathing with gills. | simple past and past participle of fish |
Where the eye mixes fish and fished
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: fish vs fished
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fish is /ˈfɪʃ/ while fished is /fɪʃt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “fish” sits inside “fished”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27428, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fish is recorded at frequency rank #1,339, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɪʃ/. fished is at rank #26,089, tagged as averb, pronounced /fɪʃt/.
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 27428, this pair ranks #378,985 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fish vs fished
Shared letters: fhis. Private to "fish": -. Private to "fished": de.
"fish" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "fished" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fish" and "fished" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "fish" or "fished"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "fish" and "fished" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "fish" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fished" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #378,985 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fish" and "fished" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fished vs fleshed". 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 #378,985 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.