naturalvsnaturedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#813
“natural” frequency rank
#27,941
“natured” frequency rank
28754
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature natural natured
Definition Existing in nature. Having or possessing the specified disposition or temperament.

Letter map: natural vs natured

Shared letters muted; letters that set natural and natured apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
natural
7 ch
natured

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

natural and natured are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28754, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

natural is recorded at frequency rank #813, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹəl/. natured is at rank #27,941, tagged as anadj.

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 28754, this pair ranks #368,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of natural vs natured

Shared letters: anrtu. Private to "natural": l. Private to "natured": de.

"natural" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "natured" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • naturalantural · natrual · nattural · natuarl · naturall · naturla · naturral · nautral
  • naturedantured · natrued · nattured · natuerd · naturde · naturedd · naturred · nautred

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "natural" and "natured" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "natural" or "natured"?
"natural" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #813 in our English list, against #27,941 for "natured". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list