celledvscoiledWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: celled is a adjective, coiled is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,129
“celled” frequency rank
#32,738
“coiled” frequency rank
80867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature celled coiled
Definition Containing cells; cellular. simple past and past participle of coil

Letter map: celled vs coiled

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

6 ch
celled
6 ch
coiled

Grammar separator: celled vs coiled

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: celled is anadjective and coiledaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

celled is recorded at frequency rank #48,129, classified as anadj. coiled is at rank #32,738, tagged as averb, pronounced /kɔɪld/.

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 80867, this pair ranks #18,889 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of celled vs coiled

Shared letters: cdel. Private to "celled": -. Private to "coiled": io.

"celled" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "coiled" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • celledccelled · celed · celeld · cellde · celledd · cleled · eclled
  • coiledccoiled · cioled · coield · coilde · coiledd · coilled · colied · ociled

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "celled" for "coiled" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "celled" is an adjective and "coiled" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "celled" or "coiled"?
"coiled" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,738 in our English list, against #48,129 for "celled". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "celled" and "coiled".

  • Full dictionary entry for "celled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coiled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,889 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "celled" and "coiled" 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 #18,889 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