Which to use
“darned” and “darted” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #45,316
- “darned” frequency rank
- #48,174
- “darted” frequency rank
- 93490
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | darned | darted |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of darn | simple past and past participle of dart |
Where the eye mixes darned and darted
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. darned and darted follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: darned vs darted
A purely visual mix-up. darned (/dɑːnd/) and darted (/ˈdɑɹtɪd/) 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 - n in “darned” becomes t in “darted”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93490, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
darned is recorded at frequency rank #45,316, classified as averb, pronounced /dɑːnd/. darted is at rank #48,174, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈdɑɹtɪd/.
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 93490, this pair ranks #1,885 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of darned vs darted
Shared letters: ader. Private to "darned": n. Private to "darted": t.
"darned" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "darted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "darned" and "darted" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "darned" or "darted" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "darned" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "darted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,885 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "darned" and "darted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "darted vs Duarte". 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 #1,885 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.