Which to use
“mired” is a noun and “mowed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,669
- “mired” frequency rank
- #38,509
- “mowed” frequency rank
- 75178
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mired | mowed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A unit of measurement for color temperature. | simple past and past participle of mow |
Letter map: mired vs mowed
Shared letters muted; letters that set mired and mowed apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mired and mowed follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for mired / mowed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mired is anoun and mowedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75178, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mired is recorded at frequency rank #36,669, classified as anoun. mowed is at rank #38,509, tagged as averb, pronounced /məʊd/.
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 75178, this pair ranks #33,929 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mired vs mowed
Shared letters: dem. Private to "mired": ir. Private to "mowed": ow.
"mired" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "mowed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mired" for "mowed" ever safe?
Frequency check: "mired" vs "mowed" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've compared "mired" and "mowed". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "mired" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mowed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #33,929 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mired" and "mowed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mired 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 #33,929 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.