Which to use
“seared” is an adjective and “skated” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,840
- “seared” frequency rank
- #37,226
- “skated” frequency rank
- 71066
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seared | skated |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | blackened by heat; scorched; burned | simple past and past participle of skate |
Letter map: seared vs skated
Shared letters muted; letters that set seared and skated apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. seared (CVVCVC) and skated (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Grammar separator: seared vs skated
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: seared is anadjective and skatedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71066, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seared is recorded at frequency rank #33,840, classified as anadj. skated is at rank #37,226, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈskeɪtɪd/.
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 71066, this pair ranks #48,128 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of seared vs skated
Shared letters: ades. Private to "seared": r. Private to "skated": kt.
"seared" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "skated" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "seared" and "skated" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "seared" or "skated" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "seared" and "skated".
- Full dictionary entry for "seared" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "skated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #48,128 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seared" and "skated" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "skated vs skirted". 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 #48,128 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.