Which to use
“decked” and “ducked” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #26,745
- “decked” frequency rank
- #28,524
- “ducked” frequency rank
- 55269
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | decked | ducked |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of deck | simple past and past participle of duck |
Where the eye mixes decked and ducked
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. decked and ducked follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between decked and ducked
A purely visual mix-up. decked (/dɛkt/) and ducked (/dʌkt/) 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 - e in “decked” becomes u in “ducked”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55269, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
decked is recorded at frequency rank #26,745, classified as averb, pronounced /dɛkt/. ducked is at rank #28,524, tagged as averb, pronounced /dʌkt/.
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 55269, this pair ranks #134,891 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of decked vs ducked
Shared letters: cdek. Private to "decked": -. Private to "ducked": u.
"decked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "ducked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "decked" and "ducked" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "decked" vs "ducked" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "decked" and "ducked" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "decked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ducked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #134,891 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "decked" and "ducked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ducked vs ducky". 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 #134,891 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.