Which to use
“temper” is a noun and “tempered” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,551
- “temper” frequency rank
- #14,438
- “tempered” frequency rank
- 23989
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | temper | tempered |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A general tendency or orientation towards a certain type of mood, a volatile state; a habitual way of thinking, behaving or reacting. | Having a specified disposition or temper. |
Letter map: temper vs tempered
Shared letters muted; letters that set temper and tempered apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for temper / tempered
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: temper is anoun and temperedanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “temper” sits inside “tempered”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23989, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
temper is recorded at frequency rank #9,551, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɛmpə/. tempered is at rank #14,438, 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 23989, this pair ranks #405,314 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of temper vs tempered
Shared letters: emprt. Private to "temper": -. Private to "tempered": d.
"temper" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "tempered" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "temper" for "tempered" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "temper" or "tempered" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "temper" and "tempered". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "temper" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tempered" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #405,314 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "temper" and "tempered" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "temper vs tenner". 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 #405,314 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.