Which to use
“veil” and “vein” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,994
- “veil” frequency rank
- #10,148
- “vein” frequency rank
- 22142
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | veil | vein |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Something hung up or spread out to hide or protect the face, or hide an object from view; usually of gauze, crepe, or similar diaphanous material. | A blood vessel that transports blood from the capillaries back to the heart. |
Where the eye mixes veil and vein
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. veil (/veɪl/) and vein (/veɪn/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - l in “veil” becomes n in “vein”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22142, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
veil is recorded at frequency rank #11,994, classified as anoun, pronounced /veɪl/. vein is at rank #10,148, tagged as anoun, pronounced /veɪn/.
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 22142, this pair ranks #418,752 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of veil vs vein
Shared letters: eiv. Private to "veil": l. Private to "vein": n.
"veil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "vein" · 4 letters · shape CVVC