minedvsmissedTell them apart

Quick tell: mined is a adjective, missed is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mined” is an adjective and “missed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,971
“mined” frequency rank
#1,567
“missed” frequency rank
18538
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mined missed
Definition That has been mined (in various senses). simple past and past participle of miss

Where the eye mixes mined and missed

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
mined
6 ch
missed

Look-alike desk: mined vs missed

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mined is /maɪnd/ while missed is /mɪst/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18538, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mined is recorded at frequency rank #16,971, classified as anadj, pronounced /maɪnd/. missed is at rank #1,567, tagged as averb, pronounced /mɪst/.

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 18538, this pair ranks #444,212 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mined vs missed

Shared letters: deim. Private to "mined": n. Private to "missed": s.

"mined" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "missed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minedimned · miend · minde · minned · mmined · mnied
  • missedimssed · mised · misesd · missde · missedd · mmissed · msised

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mined" and "missed" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mined" is an adjective and "missed" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mined" vs "missed" - which ranks higher?
"missed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,567 in our English list, against #16,971 for "mined". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mined" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "missed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #444,212 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mined" and "missed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mined vs miser". 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 #444,212 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