dentedvsdonatedConfusable pair

Quick tell: dented is a adjective, donated is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dented” is an adjective and “donated” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,361
“dented” frequency rank
#6,463
“donated” frequency rank
44824
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dented donated
Definition Having teeth of a specified colour. simple past and past participle of donate

Letter map: dented vs donated

Shared letters muted; letters that set dented and donated apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

6 ch
dented
7 ch
donated

Role in the sentence - dented and donated

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dented is anadjective and donatedaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44824, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dented is recorded at frequency rank #38,361, classified as anadj. donated is at rank #6,463, tagged as averb, pronounced /dəʊˈneɪtɪd/.

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 44824, this pair ranks #226,975 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dented vs donated

Shared letters: dent. Private to "dented": -. Private to "donated": ao.

"dented" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "donated" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dentedddented · denetd · dennted · dentde · dentedd · dentted · detned · dneted
  • donatedddonated · dnoated · doanted · donaetd · donatde · donatedd · donatted · donnated

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dented" for "donated" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dented" is an adjective and "donated" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "dented" or "donated" show up more?
"donated" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,463 in our English list, against #38,361 for "dented". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "dented" and "donated". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dented" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #226,975 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dented" and "donated" 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 #226,975 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