Which to use
“disposed” is a verb and “disputed” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,903
- “disposed” frequency rank
- #10,199
- “disputed” frequency rank
- 24102
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | disposed | disputed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of dispose | Argued; not certain, agreed upon, or accepted. |
Where the eye mixes disposed and disputed
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. disposed and disputed follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: disposed vs disputed
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: disposed is /dɪˈspoʊzd/ while disputed is /dɪsˈpjuːtɪd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
disposed is recorded at frequency rank #13,903, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈspoʊzd/. disputed is at rank #10,199, tagged as anadj, pronounced /dɪsˈpjuːtɪd/.
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 24102, this pair ranks #404,455 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of disposed vs disputed
Shared letters: deips. Private to "disposed": o. Private to "disputed": tu.
"disposed" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC · "disputed" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "disposed" and "disputed" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "disposed" or "disputed" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "disposed" and "disputed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "disposed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "disputed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #404,455 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "disposed" and "disputed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "disposed vs disused". 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 #404,455 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.