Which to use
“perfume” is a noun and “perfumed” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,422
- “perfume” frequency rank
- #44,996
- “perfumed” frequency rank
- 55418
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | perfume | perfumed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A pleasant smell; the scent, odor, or odoriferous particles emitted from a sweet-smelling substance; a pleasant odor. | Scented, having been given a pleasant smell. |
Letter map: perfume vs perfumed
Shared letters muted; letters that set perfume and perfumed apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. perfume runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against perfumed's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for perfume / perfumed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: perfume is anoun and perfumedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “perfume” sits inside “perfumed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55418, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
perfume is recorded at frequency rank #10,422, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɜːfjuːm/. perfumed is at rank #44,996, tagged as anadj.
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 55418, this pair ranks #133,770 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of perfume vs perfumed
Shared letters: efmpru. Private to "perfume": -. Private to "perfumed": d.
"perfume" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "perfumed" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "perfume" for "perfumed" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "perfume" or "perfumed" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "perfume" and "perfumed". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "perfume" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "perfumed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #133,770 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "perfume" and "perfumed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "perdue vs perfume". 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 #133,770 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.