ampedvsarsedWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“amped” and “arsed” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#36,860
“amped” frequency rank
#41,002
“arsed” frequency rank
77862
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amped arsed
Definition simple past and past participle of amp simple past and past participle of arse.

Where the eye mixes amped and arsed

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. amped and arsed follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
amped
5 ch
arsed

Visual trap between amped and arsed

A purely visual mix-up. amped (/æmpt/) and arsed (/ɑːst/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77862, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amped is recorded at frequency rank #36,860, classified as averb, pronounced /æmpt/. arsed is at rank #41,002, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɑːst/.

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 77862, this pair ranks #26,115 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of amped vs arsed

Shared letters: ade. Private to "amped": mp. Private to "arsed": rs.

"amped" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "arsed" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • amped ← amepd · ammped · ampde · ampedd · ampped · apmed · maped
  • arsed ← aresd · arrsed · arsde · arsedd · arssed · asred · rased

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "amped" for "arsed" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/æmpt/ versus /ɑːst/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "amped" or "arsed"?
"amped" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,860 in our English list, against #41,002 for "arsed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "amped" and "arsed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "amped" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arsed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #26,115 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amped" and "arsed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aced vs arsed". 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 #26,115 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