panevspannedConfusable pair

Quick tell: pane is a noun, panned is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pane” is a noun and “panned” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,874
“pane” frequency rank
#28,319
“panned” frequency rank
54193
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pane panned
Definition An individual sheet of glass in a window, door, etc. simple past and past participle of pan

Where the eye mixes pane and panned

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pane
6 ch
panned

Visual trap between pane and panned

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pane is /peɪn/ while panned is /pænd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54193, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pane is recorded at frequency rank #25,874, classified as anoun, pronounced /peɪn/. panned is at rank #28,319, tagged as averb, pronounced /pænd/.

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 54193, this pair ranks #142,989 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pane vs panned

Shared letters: aenp. Private to "pane": -. Private to "panned": d.

"pane" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "panned" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paneapne · paen · panne · pnae · ppane
  • pannedapnned · paned · panend · pannde · pannedd · pnaned · ppanned

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pane" for "panned" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pane" is a noun and "panned" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pane" or "panned"?
"pane" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,874 in our English list, against #28,319 for "panned". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "pane" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "panned" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #142,989 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pane" and "panned" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "panned vs pruned". 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 #142,989 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list