Which to use
“pained” is an adjective and “plied” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #32,111
- “pained” frequency rank
- #49,557
- “plied” frequency rank
- 81668
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pained | plied |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | In pain, especially in an emotional sense. | simple past and past participle of ply |
Where the eye mixes pained and plied
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pained runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against plied's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between pained and plied
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pained is /peɪnd/ while plied is /plaɪd/. 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 81668, 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/. plied is at rank #49,557, tagged as averb, pronounced /plaɪd/.
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 81668, this pair ranks #17,212 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pained vs plied
Shared letters: deip. Private to "pained": an. Private to "plied": l.
"pained" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "plied" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pained" and "plied" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "pained" vs "plied" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "pained" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "plied" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #17,212 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pained" and "plied" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piet 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 #17,212 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.