Which to use
“thick” is an adjective and “thicken” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,265
- “thick” frequency rank
- #41,424
- “thicken” frequency rank
- 44689
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thick | thicken |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension. | To make thicker (in the sense of wider). |
Where the eye mixes thick and thicken
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: thick vs thicken
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: thick is /θɪk/ while thicken is /ˈθɪkən/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “thick” sits inside “thicken”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44689, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thick is recorded at frequency rank #3,265, classified as anadj, pronounced /θɪk/. thicken is at rank #41,424, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈθɪkən/.
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 44689, this pair ranks #228,250 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of thick vs thicken
Shared letters: chikt. Private to "thick": -. Private to "thicken": en.
"thick" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "thicken" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "thick" and "thicken" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "thick" or "thicken" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "thick" and "thicken" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "thick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thicken" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #228,250 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thick" and "thicken" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thicken vs thickly". 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 #228,250 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.