Which to use
“seared” is an adjective and “spared” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,840
- “seared” frequency rank
- #12,330
- “spared” frequency rank
- 46170
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seared | spared |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | blackened by heat; scorched; burned | simple past and past participle of spare |
Letter map: seared vs spared
Shared letters muted; letters that set seared and spared apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. seared (CVVCVC) and spared (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Part-of-speech tell for seared / spared
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: seared is anadjective and sparedaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “seared” becomes p in “spared”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46170, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seared is recorded at frequency rank #33,840, classified as anadj. spared is at rank #12,330, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈspɛɹd/.
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 46170, this pair ranks #214,279 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of seared vs spared
Shared letters: aders. Private to "seared": -. Private to "spared": p.
"seared" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "spared" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "seared" and "spared" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "seared" or "spared" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've compared "seared" and "spared". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "seared" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "spared" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #214,279 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seared" and "spared" 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 #214,279 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.