Which to use
“lead” is a noun and “leaded” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #636
- “lead” frequency rank
- #44,898
- “leaded” frequency rank
- 45534
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lead | leaded |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A heavy, pliable, inelastic metal element, having a bright, bluish color, but easily tarnished; both malleable and ductile, though with little tenacity. It is easily fusible, forms alloys with other metals, and is an ingredient of solder and type metal. Atomic number 82, symbol Pb (from Latin plumbum). | Held in place by strips of lead. |
Where the eye mixes lead and leaded
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. lead runs 4 letters (CVVC) against leaded's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between lead and leaded
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lead is /lɛd/ while leaded is /ˈlɛdɪd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “lead” sits inside “leaded”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45534, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lead is recorded at frequency rank #636, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɛd/. leaded is at rank #44,898, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈlɛdɪd/.
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 45534, this pair ranks #220,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lead vs leaded
Shared letters: adel. Private to "lead": -. Private to "leaded": -.
"lead" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "leaded" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lead" for "leaded" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "lead" or "leaded" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "lead" and "leaded" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "lead" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "leaded" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #220,395 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lead" and "leaded" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leaded vs leaker". 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 #220,395 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.