sed vs sowed, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“sed” is a name and “sowed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,340
“sed” frequency rank: #47,920
“sowed” frequency rank: 79260
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	sed	sowed
Definition	A noninteractive text editor (originally developed in Unix), intended for making systematic edits in an automatic or batch-oriented way.	simple past and past participle of sow

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set sed and sowed apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

3 ch

sed

5 ch

sowed

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: sed is /sɛd/ while sowed is /səʊd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79260, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sed is recorded at frequency rank #31,340, classified as aname, pronounced /sɛd/. 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 79260, this pair ranks #22,526 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sed vs sowed

Shared letters: des. Private to "sed": -. Private to "sowed": ow.

"sed" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "sowed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

sowed ← oswed · soewd · sowde · sowedd · sowwed · ssowed · swoed

Frequency comparison

sed#31,340

sowed#47,920

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sed" and "sowed" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sed" is a name and "sowed" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "sed" or "sowed"?

"sed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,340 in our English list, against #47,920 for "sowed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering sed vs sowed

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a name, it's “sed”; for a verb, it's “sowed”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “sed” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable