Which to use
“sawed” and “sowed” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,213
- “sawed” frequency rank
- #47,920
- “sowed” frequency rank
- 85133
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sawed | sowed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of saw | simple past and past participle of sow |
Letter map: sawed vs sowed
Shared letters muted; letters that set sawed and sowed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. sawed and sowed follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Pair insight - sawed / sowed
sawed and sowed 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 a single letter - a in “sawed” becomes o in “sowed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85133, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sawed is recorded at frequency rank #37,213, classified as averb. sowed is at rank #47,920, tagged as averb, pronounced /səʊd/.
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 85133, this pair ranks #10,884 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sawed vs sowed
Shared letters: desw. Private to "sawed": a. Private to "sowed": o.
"sawed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "sowed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sawed" and "sowed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "sawed" or "sowed" show up more?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sawed" and "sowed".
- Full dictionary entry for "sawed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sowed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #10,884 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sawed" and "sowed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sone vs sowed". 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 #10,884 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.