friedvsfrithConfusable pair

Quick tell: fried is a verb, frith is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fried” is a verb and “frith” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,472
“fried” frequency rank
#47,063
“frith” frequency rank
53535
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fried frith
Definition simple past and past participle of fry Peace; security.

Where the eye mixes fried and frith

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
fried
5 ch
frith

Why the eye confuses fried with frith

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fried is /fɹaɪd/ while frith is /fɹɪθ/. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53535, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fried is recorded at frequency rank #6,472, classified as averb, pronounced /fɹaɪd/. frith is at rank #47,063, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɹɪθ/.

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 53535, this pair ranks #148,166 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fried vs frith

Shared letters: fir. Private to "fried": de. Private to "frith": ht.

"fried" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "frith" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • friedffried · freid · fride · friedd · frried · rfied
  • frithffrith · friht · frithh · fritth · frrith · frtih · rfith

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fried" for "frith" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fried" is a verb and "frith" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "fried" or "frith" show up more?
"fried" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,472 in our English list, against #47,063 for "frith". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fried" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frith" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #148,166 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fried" and "frith" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frith vs frothy". 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 #148,166 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list