Which to use
“shorted” is an adjective and “showed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,894
- “shorted” frequency rank
- #1,468
- “showed” frequency rank
- 44362
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | shorted | showed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dressed in shorts. | simple past of show |
Letter map: shorted vs showed
Shared letters muted; letters that set shorted and showed apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for shorted / showed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: shorted is anadjective and showedaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44362, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
shorted is recorded at frequency rank #42,894, classified as anadj. showed is at rank #1,468, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈʃəʊd/.
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 44362, this pair ranks #231,294 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of shorted vs showed
Shared letters: dehos. Private to "shorted": rt. Private to "showed": w.
"shorted" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC · "showed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "shorted" and "showed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "shorted" vs "showed" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "shorted" and "showed".
- Full dictionary entry for "shorted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "showed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #231,294 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "shorted" and "showed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shorted vs skirted". 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 #231,294 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.