Which to use
“delayed” is a verb and “deleted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,116
- “delayed” frequency rank
- #5,317
- “deleted” frequency rank
- 10433
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | delayed | deleted |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of delay | Having been deleted or eliminated; absent from the final version. |
Letter map: delayed vs deleted
Shared letters muted; letters that set delayed and deleted apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for delayed / deleted
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: delayed is averb and deletedanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10433, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
delayed is recorded at frequency rank #5,116, classified as averb, pronounced /dəˈleɪd/. deleted is at rank #5,317, tagged as anadj.
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 10433, this pair ranks #492,359 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of delayed vs deleted
Shared letters: del. Private to "delayed": ay. Private to "deleted": t.
"delayed" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC · "deleted" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "delayed" and "deleted" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "delayed" vs "deleted" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pair "delayed" vs "deleted" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "delayed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "deleted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #492,359 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "delayed" and "deleted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deleted vs deplete". 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 #492,359 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.