scared
/skɛəd/
"scared" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“scared” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,500 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #2,500
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Feeling fear; afraid, frightened.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | scared |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /skɛəd/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,500 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “scared” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for scared is 6 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skɛəd/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,500 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Feeling fear; afraid, frightened.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for scared, with forms such as "csared", "scaerd", and "scarde". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "share", "score", "scary", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From scare + -ed. The correct English form is scared, spelled S-C-A-R-E-D.
Definition
- 1Feeling fear; afraid, frightened.
Etymology
From scare + -ed.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: csared,scaerd,scarde,scaredd,sccared,scraed,sscared
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of scared - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “scared”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-C-A-R-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skɛəd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “share” - see the side-by-side comparison. scared vs share
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.