Which to use
“appalled” is an adjective and “appealed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #21,135
- “appalled” frequency rank
- #9,135
- “appealed” frequency rank
- 30270
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | appalled | appealed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Shocked, horrified by something unpleasant. | simple past and past participle of appeal |
Letter map: appalled vs appealed
Shared letters muted; letters that set appalled and appealed apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. appalled (VCCVCCVC) and appealed (VCCVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Role in the sentence - appalled and appealed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: appalled is anadjective and appealedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
appalled is recorded at frequency rank #21,135, classified as anadj. appealed is at rank #9,135, tagged as averb, pronounced /əˈpiːld/.
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 30270, this pair ranks #355,991 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of appalled vs appealed
Shared letters: adelp. Private to "appalled": -. Private to "appealed": -.
"appalled" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC · "appealed" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "appalled" for "appealed" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "appalled" or "appealed" show up more?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "appalled" and "appealed".
- Full dictionary entry for "appalled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "appealed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #355,991 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "appalled" and "appealed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appealed vs appease". 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 #355,991 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.