Which to use
“pained” is an adjective and “painted” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #32,111
- “pained” frequency rank
- #3,968
- “painted” frequency rank
- 36079
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pained | painted |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | In pain, especially in an emotional sense. | simple past and past participle of paint |
Where the eye mixes pained and painted
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between pained and painted
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pained is /peɪnd/ while painted is /ˈpeɪn.tɪd/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36079, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pained is recorded at frequency rank #32,111, classified as anadj, pronounced /peɪnd/. painted is at rank #3,968, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpeɪn.tɪd/.
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 36079, this pair ranks #306,350 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of pained vs painted
Shared letters: adeinp. Private to "pained": -. Private to "painted": t.
"pained" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "painted" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pained" and "painted" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "pained" or "painted" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "pained" and "painted" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "pained" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "painted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #306,350 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pained" and "painted" 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 #306,350 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.