Which to use
“hurt” and “hurts” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,224
- “hurt” frequency rank
- #4,309
- “hurts” frequency rank
- 5533
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hurt | hurts |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury. | third-person singular simple present indicative of hurt |
Where the eye mixes hurt and hurts
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. hurt (/hɜːt/) and hurts (/hɜːts/) 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 extra letter(s) - “hurt” sits inside “hurts”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5533, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hurt is recorded at frequency rank #1,224, classified as averb, pronounced /hɜːt/. hurts is at rank #4,309, tagged as averb, pronounced /hɜːts/.
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 5533, this pair ranks #514,975 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hurt vs hurts
Shared letters: hrtu. Private to "hurt": -. Private to "hurts": s.
"hurt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "hurts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC