Which to use
“dismayed” is an adjective and “displayed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,400
- “dismayed” frequency rank
- #5,320
- “displayed” frequency rank
- 35720
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dismayed | displayed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having the emotion of dismay. | simple past and past participle of display |
Letter map: dismayed vs displayed
Shared letters muted; letters that set dismayed and displayed apart highlighted. Shared run: 7.
Role in the sentence - dismayed and displayed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dismayed is anadjective and displayedaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35720, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dismayed is recorded at frequency rank #30,400, classified as anadj. displayed is at rank #5,320, tagged as averb, pronounced /dɪsˈpleɪd/.
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 35720, this pair ranks #309,500 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dismayed vs displayed
Shared letters: adeisy. Private to "dismayed": m. Private to "displayed": lp.
"dismayed" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVVC · "displayed" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dismayed" for "displayed" ever safe?
Which is more common, "dismayed" or "displayed"?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dismayed" and "displayed".
- Full dictionary entry for "dismayed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "displayed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #309,500 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dismayed" and "displayed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diseased vs dismayed". 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 #309,500 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.