powervspoweredConfusable pair

Quick tell: power is a noun, powered is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“power” is a noun and “powered” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#280
“power” frequency rank
#4,700
“powered” frequency rank
4980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature power powered
Definition The ability to do or undergo something. Having its own source of power, or a named source.

Letter map: power vs powered

Shared letters muted; letters that set power and powered apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
power
7 ch
powered

Role in the sentence - power and powered

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: power is anoun and poweredanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “power” sits inside “powered”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

power is recorded at frequency rank #280, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaʊ̯ə̯/. powered is at rank #4,700, 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 4980, this pair ranks #517,011 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of power vs powered

Shared letters: eoprw. Private to "power": -. Private to "powered": d.

"power" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "powered" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • poweropwer · poewr · powerr · powre · powwer · ppower · pwoer
  • poweredopwered · poewred · poweerd · powerde · poweredd · powerred · powreed · powwered

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "power" for "powered" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "power" is a noun and "powered" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "power" or "powered"?
"power" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #280 in our English list, against #4,700 for "powered". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "power" and "powered".

  • Full dictionary entry for "power" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "powered" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #517,011 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "power" and "powered" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pooper vs power". 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 #517,011 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