concertedvsconferredWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#20,318
“concerted” frequency rank
#17,575
“conferred” frequency rank
37893
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature concerted conferred
Definition Performed through a concert of effort; done by agreement or in combination. simple past and past participle of confer

Letter map: concerted vs conferred

Shared letters muted; letters that set concerted and conferred apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. concerted and conferred follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
concerted
9 ch
conferred

Role in the sentence - concerted and conferred

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: concerted is anadjective and conferredaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37893, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

concerted is recorded at frequency rank #20,318, classified as anadj. conferred is at rank #17,575, tagged as averb, pronounced /kənˈfɝd/.

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 37893, this pair ranks #290,577 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of concerted vs conferred

Shared letters: cdenor. Private to "concerted": t. Private to "conferred": f.

"concerted" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC  ·  "conferred" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • concerted ← cconcerted · cnocerted · cocnerted · conccerted · conceretd · concerrted · concertde · concertedd
  • conferred ← cconferred · cnoferred · cofnerred · conefrred · confered · confererd · conferrde · conferredd

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "concerted" for "conferred" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "concerted" is an adjective and "conferred" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "concerted" vs "conferred" - which ranks higher?
"conferred" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,575 in our English list, against #20,318 for "concerted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "concerted" and "conferred".

  • Full dictionary entry for "concerted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "conferred" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #290,577 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "concerted" and "conferred" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "concerted vs contorted". 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 #290,577 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