Which to use
“stares” is a noun and “starred” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #19,214
- “stares” frequency rank
- #11,125
- “starred” frequency rank
- 30339
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | stares | starred |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | plural of stare | simple past and past participle of star |
Letter map: stares vs starred
Shared letters muted; letters that set stares and starred apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. stares runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against starred's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for stares / starred
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: stares is anoun and starredaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30339, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
stares is recorded at frequency rank #19,214, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈstɛəz/. starred is at rank #11,125, tagged as averb.
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 30339, this pair ranks #355,368 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of stares vs starred
Shared letters: aerst. Private to "stares": -. Private to "starred": d.
"stares" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "starred" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "stares" and "starred" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "stares" or "starred" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "stares" and "starred".
- Full dictionary entry for "stares" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "starred" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #355,368 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "stares" and "starred" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stares vs staves". 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 #355,368 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.