obedience vs obedient, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“obedience” is a noun and “obedient” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,012
“obedience” frequency rank: #22,754
“obedient” frequency rank: 37766
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	obedience	obedient
Definition	The quality of being obedient.	Willing to comply with the commands, orders, or instructions of those in authority; biddable.

Where the eye mixes obedience and obedient

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

9 ch

obedience

8 ch

obedient

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: obedience is /ə(ʊ)ˈbiːdɪəns/ while obedient is /əˈbiːdɪənt/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37766, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

obedience is recorded at frequency rank #15,012, classified as anoun, pronounced /ə(ʊ)ˈbiːdɪəns/. obedient is at rank #22,754, tagged as anadj, pronounced /əˈbiːdɪənt/.

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 37766, this pair ranks #291,683 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of obedience vs obedient

Shared letters: bdeino. Private to "obedience": c. Private to "obedient": t.

"obedience" · 9 letters · shape VCVCVVCCV · "obedient" · 8 letters · shape VCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

obedience ← boedience · obbedience · obdeience · obeddience · obedeince · obediance · obediecne · obediencce
obedient ← boedient · obbedient · obdeient · obeddient · obedeint · obediennt · obedientt · obedietn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "obedience" and "obedient" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obedience" is a noun and "obedient" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "obedience" or "obedient"?

"obedience" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,012 in our English list, against #22,754 for "obedient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "obedience" and "obedient". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "obedience" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "obedient" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #291,683 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.