signedvssinnerConfusable pair

Quick tell: signed is a adjective, sinner is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“signed” is an adjective and “sinner” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,503
“signed” frequency rank
#17,487
“sinner” frequency rank
18990
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature signed sinner
Definition Having a signature; endorsed. A person who sins or has sinned.

Where the eye mixes signed and sinner

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
signed
6 ch
sinner

Visual trap between signed and sinner

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: signed is /saɪnd/ while sinner is /ˈsɪnɚ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

signed is recorded at frequency rank #1,503, classified as anadj, pronounced /saɪnd/. sinner is at rank #17,487, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsɪnɚ/.

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 18990, this pair ranks #441,230 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of signed vs sinner

Shared letters: eins. Private to "signed": dg. Private to "sinner": r.

"signed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sinner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • signedisgned · sgined · sigend · siggned · signde · signedd · signned · singed
  • sinnerisnner · sinenr · siner · sinnerr · sinnre · sniner · ssinner

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "signed" and "sinner" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "signed" is an adjective and "sinner" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "signed" vs "sinner" - which ranks higher?
"signed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,503 in our English list, against #17,487 for "sinner". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "signed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sinner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #441,230 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "signed" and "sinner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sinner vs spanner". 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 #441,230 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list