injuredvsinquiredWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,948
“injured” frequency rank
#30,097
“inquired” frequency rank
33045
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature injured inquired
Definition simple past and past participle of injure simple past and past participle of inquire

Where the eye mixes injured and inquired

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. injured runs 7 letters (VCCVCVC) against inquired's 8 (VCCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
injured
8 ch
inquired

Visual trap between injured and inquired

A purely visual mix-up. injured (/ˈɪnd͡ʒɚd/) and inquired (/ɪnˈkwaɪɹd/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33045, 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/. inquired is at rank #30,097, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɪnˈkwaɪɹd/.

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 33045, this pair ranks #332,720 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of injured vs inquired

Shared letters: deinru. Private to "injured": j. Private to "inquired": q.

"injured" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "inquired" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • injured ← ijnured · injjured · injrued · injuerd · injurde · injuredd · injurred · innjured
  • inquired ← innquired · inqiured · inqquired · inquierd · inquirde · inquiredd · inquirred · inquried

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "injured" and "inquired" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈɪnd͡ʒɚd/ versus /ɪnˈkwaɪɹd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "injured" or "inquired"?
"injured" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,948 in our English list, against #30,097 for "inquired". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "injured" and "inquired" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "injured" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "inquired" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #332,720 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "injured" and "inquired" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inquired vs inquirer". 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 #332,720 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