Which to use
“she'd” is a contraction and “sued” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,360
- “she'd” frequency rank
- #8,360
- “sued” frequency rank
- 13720
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | she'd | sued |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction of she + had. | simple past and past participle of sue |
Where the eye mixes she'd and sued
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between she'd and sued
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: she'd is /ʃiːd/ while sued is /sjuːd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13720, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
she'd is recorded at frequency rank #5,360, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ʃiːd/. sued is at rank #8,360, tagged as averb, pronounced /sjuːd/.
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 13720, this pair ranks #474,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of she'd vs sued
Shared letters: des. Private to "she'd": h. Private to "sued": u.
"she'd" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "sued" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- sued ← seud · ssued · sude · suedd
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "she'd" and "sued" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "she'd" or "sued" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "she'd" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sued" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #474,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "she'd" and "sued" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sued vs sura". 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 #474,190 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.