appalledvsappliedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#21,135
“appalled” frequency rank
#2,144
“applied” frequency rank
23279
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appalled applied
Definition Shocked, horrified by something unpleasant. Put into practical use.

Letter map: appalled vs applied

Shared letters muted; letters that set appalled and applied apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

8 ch
appalled
7 ch
applied

Pair insight - appalled / applied

appalled and applied are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appalled is recorded at frequency rank #21,135, classified as anadj. applied is at rank #2,144, tagged as anadj, pronounced /əˈplaɪd/.

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 23279, this pair ranks #410,487 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of appalled vs applied

Shared letters: adelp. Private to "appalled": -. Private to "applied": i.

"appalled" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "applied" · 7 letters · shape VCCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appalledapalled · apaplled · appaled · appaleld · appallde · appalledd · applaled · papalled
  • appliedaplied · aplpied · appiled · appleid · applide · appliedd · appllied · paplied

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "appalled" for "applied" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "appalled" or "applied" show up more?
"applied" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,144 in our English list, against #21,135 for "appalled". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "appalled" and "applied". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "appalled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "applied" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #410,487 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appalled" and "applied" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appalled vs appealed". 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 #410,487 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