Which to use
“prayed” and “preyed” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,761
- “prayed” frequency rank
- #41,823
- “preyed” frequency rank
- 53584
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | prayed | preyed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of pray | simple past and past participle of prey |
Same sound, different letters: prayed vs preyed
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - prayed and preyed
This is the hard kind. prayed and preyed are pronounced identically (/pɹeɪd/) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - a in “prayed” becomes e in “preyed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53584, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
prayed is recorded at frequency rank #11,761, classified as averb, pronounced /pɹeɪd/. preyed is at rank #41,823, tagged as averb, pronounced /pɹeɪd/.
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 53584, this pair ranks #147,815 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of prayed vs preyed
Shared letters: depry. Private to "prayed": a. Private to "preyed": -.
"prayed" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC · "preyed" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "prayed" for "preyed" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "prayed" or "preyed" show up more?
Useful next steps
"prayed" and "preyed" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "prayed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "preyed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #147,815 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "prayed" and "preyed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "preyed 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 #147,815 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.