sawedvsshowedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“sawed” and “showed” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#37,213
“sawed” frequency rank
#1,468
“showed” frequency rank
38681
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sawed showed
Definition simple past and past participle of saw simple past of show

Letter map: sawed vs showed

Shared letters muted; letters that set sawed and showed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
sawed
6 ch
showed

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

sawed and showed are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38681, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sawed is recorded at frequency rank #37,213, classified as averb. showed is at rank #1,468, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈʃəʊd/.

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 38681, this pair ranks #283,779 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sawed vs showed

Shared letters: desw. Private to "sawed": a. Private to "showed": ho.

"sawed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "showed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sawedaswed · saewd · sawde · sawedd · sawwed · ssawed · swaed
  • showedhsowed · shhowed · shoewd · showde · showedd · showwed · shwoed · sohwed

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sawed" and "showed" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "sawed" or "showed"?
"showed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,468 in our English list, against #37,213 for "sawed". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list