recordvsreloadWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: record is a noun, reload is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“record” is a noun and “reload” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#625
“record” frequency rank
#20,753
“reload” frequency rank
21378
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature record reload
Definition An item of information put into a temporary or permanent physical medium. To load (something) again.

Where the eye mixes record and reload

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
record
6 ch
reload

Visual trap between record and reload

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: record is /ˈɹɛk.ɔːd/ while reload is /ɹiːˈləʊd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21378, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

record is recorded at frequency rank #625, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɹɛk.ɔːd/. reload is at rank #20,753, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɹiːˈləʊd/.

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 21378, this pair ranks #424,351 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of record vs reload

Shared letters: deor. Private to "record": c. Private to "reload": al.

"record" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "reload" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recordercord · rceord · reccord · recodr · recordd · recorrd · recrod · reocrd
  • reloaderload · relaod · relload · reloadd · reloda · reolad · rleoad · rreload

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "record" and "reload" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "record" is a noun and "reload" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "record" or "reload" show up more?
"record" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #625 in our English list, against #20,753 for "reload". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "record" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reload" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #424,351 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "record" and "reload" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "reload vs resold". 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 #424,351 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