flutedvsflutesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fluted is a adjective, flutes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#46,466
“fluted” frequency rank
#36,145
“flutes” frequency rank
82611
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fluted flutes
Definition Having flutes or grooves, either for decoration or to trim weight. plural of flute

Letter map: fluted vs flutes

Shared letters muted; letters that set fluted and flutes apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. fluted and flutes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
fluted
6 ch
flutes

Role in the sentence - fluted and flutes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fluted is anadjective and flutesanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “fluted” becomes s in “flutes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82611, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fluted is recorded at frequency rank #46,466, classified as anadj. flutes is at rank #36,145, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fluːts/.

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 82611, this pair ranks #15,424 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fluted vs flutes

Shared letters: efltu. Private to "fluted": d. Private to "flutes": s.

"fluted" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "flutes" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fluted ← ffluted · flluted · fltued · fluetd · flutde · flutedd · flutted · fulted
  • flutes ← fflutes · fllutes · fltues · fluets · flutess · flutse · fluttes · fultes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fluted" and "flutes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fluted" is an adjective and "flutes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "fluted" or "flutes" show up more?
"flutes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,145 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fluted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "flutes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #15,424 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fluted" and "flutes" 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 #15,424 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