Which to use
“denied” is a verb and “dented” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,422
- “denied” frequency rank
- #38,361
- “dented” frequency rank
- 41783
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | denied | dented |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of deny | Having teeth of a specified colour. |
Letter map: denied vs dented
Shared letters muted; letters that set denied and dented apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for denied / dented
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: denied is averb and dentedanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - i in “denied” becomes t in “dented”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41783, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
denied is recorded at frequency rank #3,422, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈnaɪd/. 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 41783, this pair ranks #255,230 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of denied vs dented
Shared letters: den. Private to "denied": i. Private to "dented": t.
"denied" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "dented" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "denied" and "dented" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "denied" or "dented" show up more?
After this comparison
Pair "denied" vs "dented" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "denied" 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 #255,230 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "denied" 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 #255,230 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.