Which to use
“staged” is an adjective and “stayed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,255
- “staged” frequency rank
- #2,864
- “stayed” frequency rank
- 12119
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | staged | stayed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of an event, intentionally performed while being falsely contrived to appear authentic or coincidental. | simple past and past participle of stay |
Letter map: staged vs stayed
Shared letters muted; letters that set staged and stayed apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Role in the sentence - staged and stayed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: staged is anadjective and stayedaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - g in “staged” becomes y in “stayed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12119, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
staged is recorded at frequency rank #9,255, classified as anadj. stayed is at rank #2,864, tagged as averb, pronounced /steɪd/.
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 12119, this pair ranks #483,313 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of staged vs stayed
Shared letters: adest. Private to "staged": g. Private to "stayed": y.
"staged" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "stayed" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "staged" for "stayed" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "staged" or "stayed" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "staged" vs "stayed" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "staged" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stayed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #483,313 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "staged" and "stayed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Seager vs staged". 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 #483,313 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.