stonedvsstoneyTell them apart

Quick tell: stoned is a verb, stoney is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“stoned” is a verb and “stoney” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,518
“stoned” frequency rank
#38,182
“stoney” frequency rank
53700
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stoned stoney
Definition simple past and past participle of stone Obsolete form of stony.

Letter map: stoned vs stoney

Shared letters muted; letters that set stoned and stoney apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. stoned (CCVCVC) and stoney (CCVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
stoned
6 ch
stoney

Part-of-speech tell for stoned / stoney

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: stoned is averb and stoneyanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “stoned” becomes y in “stoney”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53700, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stoned is recorded at frequency rank #15,518, classified as averb, pronounced /stəʊnd/. stoney is at rank #38,182, tagged as anadj.

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 53700, this pair ranks #146,893 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of stoned vs stoney

Shared letters: enost. Private to "stoned": d. Private to "stoney": y.

"stoned" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "stoney" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stoned ← sotned · sstoned · stnoed · stoend · stonde · stonedd · stonned · sttoned
  • stoney ← sotney · sstoney · stnoey · stoeny · stoneyy · stonney · stonye · sttoney

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "stoned" and "stoney" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "stoned" is a verb and "stoney" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "stoned" vs "stoney" - which ranks higher?
"stoned" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,518 in our English list, against #38,182 for "stoney". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "stoned" vs "stoney" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stoned" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stoney" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,893 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stoned" and "stoney" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stoney vs stover". 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 #146,893 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