wincevswindedWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: wince is a noun, winded is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wince” is a noun and “winded” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,866
“wince” frequency rank
#34,351
“winded” frequency rank
81217
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wince winded
Definition A sudden movement or gesture of shrinking away. simple past and past participle of wind

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set wince and winded apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
wince
6 ch
winded

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wince is anoun and windedaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81217, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wince is recorded at frequency rank #46,866, classified as anoun, pronounced /wɪns/. winded is at rank #34,351, tagged as averb.

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 81217, this pair ranks #18,128 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of wince vs winded

Shared letters: einw. Private to "wince": c. Private to "winded": d.

"wince" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "winded" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • winceiwnce · wicne · wincce · winec · winnce · wnice · wwince
  • windediwnded · widned · windde · windded · windedd · winedd · winnded · wnided

Frequency comparison

wince#46,866
winded#34,351

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wince" and "winded" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wince" is a noun and "winded" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wince" or "winded"?
"winded" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,351 in our English list, against #46,866 for "wince". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering wince vs winded

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “wince”; for a verb, it's “winded”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “wince” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list