Which to use
“complied” and “complies” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,888
- “complied” frequency rank
- #30,373
- “complies” frequency rank
- 51261
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | complied | complies |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of comply | third-person singular simple present indicative of comply |
Where the eye mixes complied and complies
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. complied and complies follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses complied with complies
A purely visual mix-up. complied (/kəmˈplaɪd/) and complies (/kəmˈplaɪz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - d in “complied” becomes s in “complies”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51261, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
complied is recorded at frequency rank #20,888, classified as averb, pronounced /kəmˈplaɪd/. complies is at rank #30,373, tagged as averb, pronounced /kəmˈplaɪz/.
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 51261, this pair ranks #166,966 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of complied vs complies
Shared letters: ceilmop. Private to "complied": d. Private to "complies": s.
"complied" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC · "complies" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "complied" and "complies" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "complied" or "complies" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "complied" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "complies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #166,966 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "complied" and "complies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "competes vs complies". 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 #166,966 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.