Which to use
“fight” and “fought” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #585
- “fight” frequency rank
- #3,060
- “fought” frequency rank
- 3645
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fight | fought |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Senses relating to physical conflict: | simple past and past participle of fight |
Where the eye mixes fight and fought
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. fight runs 5 letters (CVCCC) against fought's 6 (CVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses fight with fought
A purely visual mix-up. fight (/faɪt/) and fought (/fɔːt/) 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 3645, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fight is recorded at frequency rank #585, classified as averb, pronounced /faɪt/. fought is at rank #3,060, tagged as averb, pronounced /fɔːt/.
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 3645, this pair ranks #521,464 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fight vs fought
Shared letters: fght. Private to "fight": i. Private to "fought": ou.
"fight" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC · "fought" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fight" and "fought" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "fight" or "fought" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "fight" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fought" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #521,464 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fight" and "fought" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fidget vs fight". 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 #521,464 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.