Which to use
“paine” is a noun and “pained” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #23,349
- “paine” frequency rank
- #32,111
- “pained” frequency rank
- 55460
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | paine | pained |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Obsolete spelling of pain. | In pain, especially in an emotional sense. |
Letter map: paine vs pained
Shared letters muted; letters that set paine and pained apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. paine runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against pained's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Grammar separator: paine vs pained
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paine is anoun and painedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “paine” sits inside “pained”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55460, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
paine is recorded at frequency rank #23,349, classified as anoun. pained is at rank #32,111, tagged as anadj, pronounced /peɪnd/.
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 55460, this pair ranks #133,472 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of paine vs pained
Shared letters: aeinp. Private to "paine": -. Private to "pained": d.
"paine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "pained" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "paine" for "pained" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "paine" or "pained" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "paine" and "pained". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "paine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pained" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #133,472 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "paine" and "pained" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pained vs plied". 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 #133,472 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.