cellvscelledWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cell is a noun, celled is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cell” is a noun and “celled” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,419
“cell” frequency rank
#48,129
“celled” frequency rank
49548
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cell celled
Definition A single-room dwelling for a hermit. Containing cells; cellular.

Letter map: cell vs celled

Shared letters muted; letters that set cell and celled apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
cell
6 ch
celled

Role in the sentence - cell and celled

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: cell is anoun and celledanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “cell” sits inside “celled”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49548, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cell is recorded at frequency rank #1,419, classified as anoun, pronounced /sɛl/. celled is at rank #48,129, 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 49548, this pair ranks #182,552 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cell vs celled

Shared letters: cel. Private to "cell": -. Private to "celled": d.

"cell" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "celled" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cellccell · clel · ecll
  • celledccelled · celed · celeld · cellde · celledd · cleled · eclled

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cell" and "celled" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cell" is a noun and "celled" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cell" or "celled"?
"cell" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,419 in our English list, against #48,129 for "celled". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "cell" vs "celled" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cell" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "celled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #182,552 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cell" and "celled" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "celled vs culled". 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 #182,552 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