draftvsdraftedWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: draft is a noun, drafted is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“draft” is a noun and “drafted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,438
“draft” frequency rank
#8,140
“drafted” frequency rank
10578
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature draft drafted
Definition A current of air, usually coming into a room or vehicle. of a certain depth required to float (said of a vessel); used comparatively with shallow, deep, etc.

Letter map: draft vs drafted

Shared letters muted; letters that set draft and drafted apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
draft
7 ch
drafted

Role in the sentence - draft and drafted

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: draft is anoun and draftedanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “draft” sits inside “drafted”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

draft is recorded at frequency rank #2,438, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɹɑːft/. drafted is at rank #8,140, tagged as anadj.

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 10578, this pair ranks #491,608 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of draft vs drafted

Shared letters: adfrt. Private to "draft": -. Private to "drafted": e.

"draft" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "drafted" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • draftdarft · ddraft · drafft · draftt · dratf · drfat · drraft · rdaft
  • drafteddarfted · ddrafted · drafetd · draffted · draftde · draftedd · draftted · dratfed

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "draft" and "drafted" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "draft" is a noun and "drafted" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "draft" vs "drafted" - which ranks higher?
"draft" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,438 in our English list, against #8,140 for "drafted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "draft" and "drafted". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "draft" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drafted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #491,608 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "draft" and "drafted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "darted vs drafted". 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 #491,608 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