Which to use
“road” is a noun and “rowed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #577
- “road” frequency rank
- #38,141
- “rowed” frequency rank
- 38718
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | road | rowed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A way used for travelling between places, originally one wide enough to allow foot passengers and horses to travel, now (US) usually one surfaced with asphalt or concrete and designed to accommodate many vehicles travelling in both directions. In the UK both senses are heard: a country road is the same as a country lane. | simple past and past participle of row |
Where the eye mixes road and rowed
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between road and rowed
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: road is /ɾoːɖ/ while rowed is /ɹəʊd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38718, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
road is recorded at frequency rank #577, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɾoːɖ/. 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 38718, this pair ranks #283,426 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of road vs rowed
Shared letters: dor. Private to "road": a. Private to "rowed": ew.
"road" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "rowed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "road" for "rowed" ever safe?
Frequency check: "road" vs "rowed" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "road" and "rowed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "road" 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 #283,426 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "road" 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 #283,426 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.