Which to use
“hound” is a noun and “hounded” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #16,494
- “hound” frequency rank
- #41,680
- “hounded” frequency rank
- 58174
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hound | hounded |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A dog, particularly a breed with a good sense of smell developed for hunting other animals. | simple past and past participle of hound |
Where the eye mixes hound and hounded
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: hound vs hounded
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hound is /haʊnd/ while hounded is /ˈhaʊndɪd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hound” sits inside “hounded”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58174, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hound is recorded at frequency rank #16,494, classified as anoun, pronounced /haʊnd/. hounded is at rank #41,680, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈhaʊndɪd/.
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 58174, this pair ranks #114,389 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hound vs hounded
Shared letters: dhnou. Private to "hound": -. Private to "hounded": e.
"hound" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "hounded" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "hound" and "hounded" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "hound" or "hounded"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "hound" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hounded" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #114,389 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hound" and "hounded" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "horned vs hounded". 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 #114,389 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.