Which to use
“harden” and “hardened” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,554
- “harden” frequency rank
- #14,555
- “hardened” frequency rank
- 29109
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | harden | hardened |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To become hard. | simple past and past participle of harden |
Where the eye mixes harden and hardened
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. harden runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against hardened's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between harden and hardened
A purely visual mix-up. harden (/ˈhɑɹdn̩/) and hardened (/ˈhɑːdn̩d/) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “harden” sits inside “hardened”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29109, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
harden is recorded at frequency rank #14,554, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈhɑɹdn̩/. hardened is at rank #14,555, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhɑːdn̩d/.
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 29109, this pair ranks #365,746 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of harden vs hardened
Shared letters: adehnr. Private to "harden": -. Private to "hardened": -.
"harden" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "hardened" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "harden" and "hardened" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "harden" vs "hardened" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "harden" and "hardened" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "harden" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hardened" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #365,746 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "harden" and "hardened" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Harbin vs harden". 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 #365,746 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.