razedvsrowedConfusable pair

Quick tell: razed is a adjective, rowed is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“razed” is an adjective and “rowed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,652
“razed” frequency rank
#38,141
“rowed” frequency rank
75793
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature razed rowed
Definition Slashed or striped in patterns. simple past and past participle of row

Letter map: razed vs rowed

Shared letters muted; letters that set razed and rowed apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
razed
5 ch
rowed

Part-of-speech tell for razed / rowed

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: razed is anadjective and rowedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75793, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

razed is recorded at frequency rank #37,652, classified as anadj. rowed is at rank #38,141, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɹəʊd/.

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 75793, this pair ranks #32,001 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of razed vs rowed

Shared letters: der. Private to "razed": az. Private to "rowed": ow.

"razed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "rowed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • razedarzed · raezd · razde · razedd · razzed · rrazed · rzaed
  • rowedorwed · roewd · rowde · rowedd · rowwed · rrowed · rwoed

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "razed" and "rowed" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "razed" is an adjective and "rowed" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "razed" or "rowed" show up more?
"razed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,652 in our English list, against #38,141 for "rowed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "razed" and "rowed".

  • Full dictionary entry for "razed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rowed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,001 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "razed" and "rowed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rood vs rowed". 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 #32,001 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