addledvsangledWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: addled is a verb, angled is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“addled” is a verb and “angled” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,172
“addled” frequency rank
#20,286
“angled” frequency rank
69458
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature addled angled
Definition simple past and past participle of addle Arranged so as to form an angle.

Letter map: addled vs angled

Shared letters muted; letters that set addled and angled apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
addled
6 ch
angled

Role in the sentence - addled and angled

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: addled is averb and angledanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69458, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

addled is recorded at frequency rank #49,172, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈæ.dəld/. angled is at rank #20,286, 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 69458, this pair ranks #54,481 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of addled vs angled

Shared letters: adel. Private to "addled": -. Private to "angled": gn.

"addled" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVC  ·  "angled" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • addledaddeld · addlde · addledd · addlled · adlded · adled · dadled
  • angledagnled · angeld · anggled · anglde · angledd · anglled · anlged · anngled

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "addled" and "angled" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "addled" is a verb and "angled" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "addled" or "angled" show up more?
"angled" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,286 in our English list, against #49,172 for "addled". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "addled" and "angled".

  • Full dictionary entry for "addled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "angled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,481 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "addled" and "angled" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adder vs addled". 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 #54,481 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list