tamervstimesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#40,045
“tamer” frequency rank
#250
“times” frequency rank
40295
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tamer times
Definition One who tames or subdues. plural of time

Where the eye mixes tamer and times

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tamer and times follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
tamer
5 ch
times

Look-alike desk: tamer vs times

A purely visual mix-up. tamer (/ˈteɪmɚ/) and times (/taɪmz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40295, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tamer is recorded at frequency rank #40,045, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈteɪmɚ/. times is at rank #250, tagged as anoun, pronounced /taɪmz/.

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 40295, this pair ranks #268,898 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tamer vs times

Shared letters: emt. Private to "tamer": ar. Private to "times": is.

"tamer" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "times" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tamer ← atmer · taemr · tamerr · tammer · tamre · tmaer · ttamer
  • times ← itmes · tiems · timess · timmes · timse · tmies · ttimes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tamer" for "times" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈteɪmɚ/ versus /taɪmz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "tamer" or "times" show up more?
"times" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #250 in our English list, against #40,045 for "tamer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tamer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "times" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #268,898 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tamer" and "times" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "TAFE vs tamer". 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 #268,898 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