drapevsdrapedWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,786
“drape” frequency rank
#22,957
“draped” frequency rank
62743
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drape draped
Definition A curtain; a drapery. Covered by or clothed in cloth that drapes loosely around the object or body.

Where the eye mixes drape and draped

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

5 ch
drape
6 ch
draped

Visual trap between drape and draped

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drape is /dɹeɪp/ while draped is /dɹeɪpt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “drape” sits inside “draped”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drape is recorded at frequency rank #39,786, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɹeɪp/. draped is at rank #22,957, tagged as anadj, pronounced /dɹeɪpt/.

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 62743, this pair ranks #86,753 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of drape vs draped

Shared letters: adepr. Private to "drape": -. Private to "draped": -.

"drape" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "draped" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drapedarpe · ddrape · draep · drappe · drpae · drrape · rdape
  • drapeddarped · ddraped · draepd · drapde · drapedd · drapped · drpaed · drraped

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drape" for "draped" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drape" is a noun and "draped" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "drape" or "draped" show up more?
"draped" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,957 in our English list, against #39,786 for "drape". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "drape" and "draped" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drape" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "draped" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #86,753 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drape" and "draped" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drape vs Druze". 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 #86,753 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