Which to use
“pain” and “pair” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #996
- “pain” frequency rank
- #1,955
- “pair” frequency rank
- 2951
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pain | pair |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An ache or bodily suffering, or an instance of this; an unpleasant sensation, resulting from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; hurt. | Two alike or identical things taken together; often followed by of. |
Where the eye mixes pain and pair
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. pain (/peɪn/) and pair (/pɛə/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - n in “pain” becomes r in “pair”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2951, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pain is recorded at frequency rank #996, classified as anoun, pronounced /peɪn/. pair is at rank #1,955, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɛə/.
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 2951, this pair ranks #523,555 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of pain vs pair
Shared letters: aip. Private to "pain": n. Private to "pair": r.
"pain" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "pair" · 4 letters · shape CVVC