soarvssoaredWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“soar” and “soared” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,493
“soar” frequency rank
#26,967
“soared” frequency rank
44460
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soar soared
Definition To fly high with little effort, like a bird. simple past and past participle of soar

Where the eye mixes soar and soared

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

4 ch
soar
6 ch
soared

Visual trap between soar and soared

A purely visual mix-up. soar (/sɔː/) and soared (/sɔːd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “soar” sits inside “soared”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44460, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soar is recorded at frequency rank #17,493, classified as averb, pronounced /sɔː/. soared is at rank #26,967, tagged as averb, pronounced /sɔːd/.

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 44460, this pair ranks #230,348 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of soar vs soared

Shared letters: aors. Private to "soar": -. Private to "soared": de.

"soar" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "soared" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soarosar · saor · soarr · ssoar
  • soaredosared · saored · soaerd · soarde · soaredd · soarred · soraed · ssoared

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "soar" and "soared" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/sɔː/ versus /sɔːd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "soar" or "soared"?
"soar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,493 in our English list, against #26,967 for "soared". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "soar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "soared" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,348 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soar" and "soared" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "soared vs sorrel". 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 #230,348 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