Which to use
“delved” is a verb and “dented” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,157
- “delved” frequency rank
- #38,361
- “dented” frequency rank
- 82518
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | delved | dented |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of delve | Having teeth of a specified colour. |
Letter map: delved vs dented
Shared letters muted; letters that set delved and dented apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. delved and dented follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for delved / dented
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: delved is averb and dentedanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82518, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
delved is recorded at frequency rank #44,157, classified as averb, pronounced /dɛlvd/. dented is at rank #38,361, 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 82518, this pair ranks #15,585 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of delved vs dented
Shared letters: de. Private to "delved": lv. Private to "dented": nt.
"delved" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "dented" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "delved" and "dented" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "delved" vs "dented" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pair "delved" vs "dented" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "delved" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dented" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #15,585 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "delved" and "dented" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "darted vs dented". 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 #15,585 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.