Which to use
“punish” and “punished” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,726
- “punish” frequency rank
- #7,173
- “punished” frequency rank
- 14899
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | punish | punished |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action, typically by an authority or a person in authority (for example: a parent, teacher, or police officer). | simple past and past participle of punish |
Where the eye mixes punish and punished
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. punish runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against punished's 8 (CVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: punish vs punished
A purely visual mix-up. punish (/ˈpʌnɪʃ/) and punished (/ˈpʌnɪʃt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “punish” sits inside “punished”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14899, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
punish is recorded at frequency rank #7,726, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈpʌnɪʃ/. punished is at rank #7,173, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpʌnɪʃt/.
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 14899, this pair ranks #467,282 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of punish vs punished
Shared letters: hinpsu. Private to "punish": -. Private to "punished": de.
"punish" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "punished" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "punish" and "punished" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "punish" or "punished" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "punish" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "punished" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #467,282 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "punish" and "punished" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "punish vs purist". 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 #467,282 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.