incensedvsintenseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“incensed” and “intense” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#37,042
“incensed” frequency rank
#3,698
“intense” frequency rank
40740
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature incensed intense
Definition Enraged; infuriated; spitefully or furiously angry. Of a characteristic: extreme or very high or strong in degree; severe; also, excessive, towering.

Letter map: incensed vs intense

Shared letters muted; letters that set incensed and intense apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. incensed runs 8 letters (VCCVCCVC) against intense's 7 (VCCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
incensed
7 ch
intense

Spelling & dictionary notes on incensed vs intense

incensed and intense are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40740, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

incensed is recorded at frequency rank #37,042, classified as anadj. intense is at rank #3,698, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɪnˈtɛns/.

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 40740, this pair ranks #264,813 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of incensed vs intense

Shared letters: eins. Private to "incensed": cd. Private to "intense": t.

"incensed" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "intense" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • incensed ← icnensed · inccensed · incenesd · incennsed · incensde · incensedd · incenssed · incesned
  • intense ← inetnse · inntense · intenes · intennse · intensse · intesne · intnese · inttense

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "incensed" for "intense" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "incensed" or "intense"?
"intense" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,698 in our English list, against #37,042 for "incensed". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "incensed" and "intense".

  • Full dictionary entry for "incensed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intense" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,813 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "incensed" and "intense" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "incensed vs indented". 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 #264,813 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