searedvssharedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#33,840
“seared” frequency rank
#2,128
“shared” frequency rank
35968
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seared shared
Definition blackened by heat; scorched; burned Used by multiple entities or for multiple purposes or in multiple ways.

Letter map: seared vs shared

Shared letters muted; letters that set seared and shared apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

6 ch
seared
6 ch
shared

Pair insight - seared / shared

seared and shared 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 - e in “seared” becomes h in “shared”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35968, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seared is recorded at frequency rank #33,840, classified as anadj. shared is at rank #2,128, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ʃɛːd/.

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 35968, this pair ranks #307,364 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of seared vs shared

Shared letters: aders. Private to "seared": -. Private to "shared": h.

"seared" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "shared" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • searedesared · saered · seaerd · searde · searedd · searred · seraed · sseared
  • sharedhsared · sahred · shaerd · sharde · sharedd · sharred · shhared · shraed

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "seared" and "shared" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by a single letter - e in “seared” becomes h in “shared”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "seared" or "shared" show up more?
"shared" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,128 in our English list, against #33,840 for "seared". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "seared" and "shared".

  • Full dictionary entry for "seared" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "shared" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #307,364 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seared" and "shared" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Seager vs seared". 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 #307,364 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