fledvsflutedWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fled is a verb, fluted is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fled” is a verb and “fluted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,573
“fled” frequency rank
#46,466
“fluted” frequency rank
53039
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fled fluted
Definition simple past and past participle of flee Having flutes or grooves, either for decoration or to trim weight.

Letter map: fled vs fluted

Shared letters muted; letters that set fled and fluted apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
fled
6 ch
fluted

Part-of-speech tell for fled / fluted

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fled is averb and flutedanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53039, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fled is recorded at frequency rank #6,573, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈflɛd/. fluted is at rank #46,466, 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 53039, this pair ranks #152,178 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fled vs fluted

Shared letters: defl. Private to "fled": -. Private to "fluted": tu.

"fled" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "fluted" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fledfeld · ffled · flde · fledd · flled · lfed
  • flutedffluted · flluted · fltued · fluetd · flutde · flutedd · flutted · fulted

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fled" and "fluted" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fled" is a verb and "fluted" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fled" or "fluted"?
"fled" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,573 in our English list, against #46,466 for "fluted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "fled" and "fluted". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fled" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fluted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #152,178 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fled" and "fluted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flaked vs fluted". 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 #152,178 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