feltvsfieldWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“felt” and “field” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#770
“felt” frequency rank
#571
“field” frequency rank
1341
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature felt field
Definition A cloth or stuff made of matted fibres of wool, or wool and fur, fulled or wrought into a compact substance by rolling and pressure, with lees or size, without spinning or weaving. A land area free of woodland, cities, and towns; an area of open country.

Where the eye mixes felt and field

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
felt
5 ch
field

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. felt (/ˈfɛlt/) and field (/ˈfi(ː)ld/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1341, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

felt is recorded at frequency rank #770, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfɛlt/. field is at rank #571, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfi(ː)ld/.

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 1341, this pair ranks #527,619 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of felt vs field

Shared letters: efl. Private to "felt": t. Private to "field": di.

"felt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "field" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • felteflt · fellt · feltt · fetl · ffelt · flet
  • fieldfeild · ffield · fiedl · fieldd · fielld · ifeld

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "felt" and "field" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈfɛlt/ versus /ˈfi(ː)ld/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "felt" or "field"?
"field" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #571 in our English list, against #770 for "felt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list