dedvsdeepWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ded is a noun, deep is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ded” is a noun and “deep” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,281
“ded” frequency rank
#945
“deep” frequency rank
40226
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ded deep
Definition A person who inflicts dedovshchina (a kind of hazing ritual). Extending, reaching or positioned far from a point of reference, especially downwards.

Letter map: ded vs deep

Shared letters muted; letters that set ded and deep apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
ded
4 ch
deep

Part-of-speech tell for ded / deep

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ded is anoun and deepanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40226, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ded is recorded at frequency rank #39,281, classified as anoun. deep is at rank #945, tagged as anadj, pronounced /diːp/.

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 40226, this pair ranks #269,483 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ded vs deep

Shared letters: de. Private to "ded": -. Private to "deep": p.

"ded" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "deep" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deepddeep · deepp · depe · edep

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ded" for "deep" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ded" is a noun and "deep" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ded" vs "deep" - which ranks higher?
"deep" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #945 in our English list, against #39,281 for "ded". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ded" and "deep".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ded" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "deep" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #269,483 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ded" and "deep" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ded vs dox". 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 #269,483 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