Which to use
“died” and “dies” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #632
- “died” frequency rank
- #3,554
- “dies” frequency rank
- 4186
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | died | dies |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of die | third-person singular simple present indicative of die |
Where the eye mixes died and dies
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. died (/daɪd/) and dies (/daɪz/) 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 a single letter - d in “died” becomes s in “dies”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
died is recorded at frequency rank #632, classified as averb, pronounced /daɪd/. dies is at rank #3,554, tagged as averb, pronounced /daɪz/.
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 4186, this pair ranks #519,723 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of died vs dies
Shared letters: dei. Private to "died": -. Private to "dies": s.
"died" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "dies" · 4 letters · shape CVVC