painvsparkWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#996
“pain” frequency rank
#717
“park” frequency rank
1713
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pain park
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. An area of land set aside for environment preservation or recreation.

Where the eye mixes pain and park

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pain
4 ch
park

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pain (/peɪn/) and park (/pɑɹk/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1713, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pain is recorded at frequency rank #996, classified as anoun, pronounced /peɪn/. park is at rank #717, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pɑɹk/.

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 1713, this pair ranks #526,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pain vs park

Shared letters: ap. Private to "pain": in. Private to "park": kr.

"pain" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "park" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • painapin · painn · pani · pian · ppain
  • parkaprk · pakr · parkk · parrk · ppark · prak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pain" and "park" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/peɪn/ versus /pɑɹk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pain" or "park"?
"park" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #717 in our English list, against #996 for "pain". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list