Which to use
“seared” is an adjective and “stayed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,840
- “seared” frequency rank
- #2,864
- “stayed” frequency rank
- 36704
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seared | stayed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | blackened by heat; scorched; burned | simple past and past participle of stay |
Letter map: seared vs stayed
Shared letters muted; letters that set seared and stayed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.
Part-of-speech tell for seared / stayed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: seared is anadjective and stayedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36704, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seared is recorded at frequency rank #33,840, classified as anadj. stayed is at rank #2,864, tagged as averb, pronounced /steɪd/.
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 36704, this pair ranks #300,896 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of seared vs stayed
Shared letters: ades. Private to "seared": r. Private to "stayed": ty.
"seared" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "stayed" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "seared" and "stayed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "seared" vs "stayed" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pair "seared" vs "stayed" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "seared" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stayed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #300,896 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seared" and "stayed" 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 #300,896 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.