Which to use
“designed” and “desired” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,165
- “designed” frequency rank
- #5,492
- “desired” frequency rank
- 6657
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | designed | desired |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of design | simple past and past participle of desire |
Where the eye mixes designed and desired
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: designed vs desired
A purely visual mix-up. designed (/dɪˈzaɪnd/) and desired (/dɪˈzaɪəd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6657, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
designed is recorded at frequency rank #1,165, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈzaɪnd/. desired is at rank #5,492, tagged as averb, pronounced /dɪˈzaɪəd/.
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 6657, this pair ranks #510,544 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of designed vs desired
Shared letters: deis. Private to "designed": gn. Private to "desired": r.
"designed" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC · "desired" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "designed" for "desired" ever safe?
Frequency check: "designed" vs "desired" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "designed" and "desired" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "designed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "desired" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #510,544 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "designed" and "desired" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "defiled vs desired". 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 #510,544 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.