collaredvscollatedWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#36,080
“collared” frequency rank
#38,337
“collated” frequency rank
74417
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature collared collated
Definition Having a collar (or other encircling demarcation). simple past and past participle of collate

Where the eye mixes collared and collated

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

8 ch
collared
8 ch
collated

Visual trap between collared and collated

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: collared is /ˈkɒl.ə(ɹ)d/ while collated is /kəˈleɪtɪd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “collared” becomes t in “collated”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74417, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

collared is recorded at frequency rank #36,080, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɒl.ə(ɹ)d/. collated is at rank #38,337, tagged as averb, pronounced /kəˈleɪtɪd/.

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 74417, this pair ranks #36,409 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of collared vs collated

Shared letters: acdelo. Private to "collared": r. Private to "collated": t.

"collared" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "collated" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • collaredccollared · clolared · colalred · colared · collaerd · collarde · collaredd · collarred
  • collatedccollated · clolated · colalted · colated · collaetd · collatde · collatedd · collatted

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "collared" for "collated" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "collared" is an adjective and "collated" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "collared" or "collated" show up more?
"collared" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,080 in our English list, against #38,337 for "collated". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "collared" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "collated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #36,409 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "collared" and "collated" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "collard vs collated". 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 #36,409 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