soaredvssowedTell them apart

Which to use

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

#26,967
“soared” frequency rank
#47,920
“sowed” frequency rank
74887
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature soared sowed
Definition simple past and past participle of soar simple past and past participle of sow

Where the eye mixes soared and sowed

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

6 ch
soared
5 ch
sowed

Look-alike desk: soared vs sowed

A purely visual mix-up. soared (/sɔːd/) and sowed (/səʊd/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74887, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

soared is recorded at frequency rank #26,967, classified as averb, pronounced /sɔːd/. sowed is at rank #47,920, tagged as averb, pronounced /səʊd/.

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 74887, this pair ranks #34,873 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of soared vs sowed

Shared letters: deos. Private to "soared": ar. Private to "sowed": w.

"soared" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "sowed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • soaredosared · saored · soaerd · soarde · soaredd · soarred · soraed · ssoared
  • sowedoswed · soewd · sowde · sowedd · sowwed · ssowed · swoed

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "soared" for "sowed" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/sɔːd/ versus /səʊd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "soared" or "sowed"?
"soared" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,967 in our English list, against #47,920 for "sowed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "soared" and "sowed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "soared" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sowed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #34,873 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "soared" and "sowed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sone vs sowed". 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 #34,873 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