Which to use
“fabled” is an adjective and “failed” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,228
- “fabled” frequency rank
- #1,596
- “failed” frequency rank
- 34824
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fabled | failed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Known only in fables; fictitious. | simple past and past participle of fail |
Letter map: fabled vs failed
Shared letters muted; letters that set fabled and failed apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for fabled / failed
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fabled is anadjective and failedaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - b in “fabled” becomes i in “failed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34824, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fabled is recorded at frequency rank #33,228, classified as anadj. failed is at rank #1,596, tagged as averb, pronounced /feɪld/.
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 34824, this pair ranks #317,347 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fabled vs failed
Shared letters: adefl. Private to "fabled": b. Private to "failed": i.
"fabled" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "failed" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "fabled" and "failed" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "fabled" or "failed" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "fabled" and "failed". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "fabled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "failed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #317,347 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fabled" and "failed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fabled vs faulted". 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 #317,347 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.