Which to use
“shone” is a verb and “stoney” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #21,656
- “shone” frequency rank
- #38,182
- “stoney” frequency rank
- 59838
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shone | stoney |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of shine | Obsolete form of stony. |
Letter map: shone vs stoney
Shared letters muted; letters that set shone and stoney apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. shone runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against stoney's 6 (CCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for shone / stoney
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: shone is averb and stoneyanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59838, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shone is recorded at frequency rank #21,656, classified as averb, pronounced /ʃɒn/. stoney is at rank #38,182, tagged as anadj.
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 59838, this pair ranks #103,801 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of shone vs stoney
Shared letters: enos. Private to "shone": h. Private to "stoney": ty.
"shone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "stoney" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "shone" and "stoney" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "shone" or "stoney"?
What to do next
You've compared "shone" and "stoney". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "shone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stoney" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #103,801 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "shone" and "stoney" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stoney vs stover". 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 #103,801 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.