minedvsmixedWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#16,971
“mined” frequency rank
#2,305
“mixed” frequency rank
19276
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes mined and mixed

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

5 ch
mined
5 ch
mixed

Look-alike desk: mined vs mixed

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mined is /maɪnd/ while mixed is /mɪkst/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - n in “mined” becomes x in “mixed”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19276, 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/. mixed is at rank #2,305, tagged as averb, pronounced /mɪkst/.

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 19276, this pair ranks #439,287 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mined vs mixed

Shared letters: deim. Private to "mined": n. Private to "mixed": x.

"mined" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "mixed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • minedimned · miend · minde · minned · mmined · mnied
  • mixedimxed · miexd · mixde · mixedd · mixxed · mmixed · mxied

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mined" for "mixed" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mined" is an adjective and "mixed" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mined" or "mixed"?
"mixed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,305 in our English list, against #16,971 for "mined". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "mixed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #439,287 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mined" and "mixed" 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 #439,287 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