Which to use
“injured” is a verb and “injury” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,948
- “injured” frequency rank
- #1,865
- “injury” frequency rank
- 4813
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | injured | injury |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of injure | Damage to the body of a living thing. |
Where the eye mixes injured and injury
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. injured runs 7 letters (VCCVCVC) against injury's 6 (VCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: injured vs injury
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: injured is /ˈɪnd͡ʒɚd/ while injury is /ˈɪn.d͡ʒə.ɹi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4813, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
injured is recorded at frequency rank #2,948, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈɪnd͡ʒɚd/. injury is at rank #1,865, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɪn.d͡ʒə.ɹi/.
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 4813, this pair ranks #517,585 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of injured vs injury
Shared letters: ijnru. Private to "injured": de. Private to "injury": y.
"injured" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC · "injury" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "injured" for "injury" ever safe?
Which is more common, "injured" or "injury"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "injured" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "injury" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #517,585 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "injured" and "injury" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inbred vs injured". 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 #517,585 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.