Which to use
“guess” and “guessed” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #694
- “guess” frequency rank
- #10,857
- “guessed” frequency rank
- 11551
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | guess | guessed |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To reach a partly (or totally) unconfirmed conclusion; to engage in conjecture; to speculate. | simple past and past participle of guess |
Where the eye mixes guess and guessed
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. guess runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against guessed's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: guess vs guessed
A purely visual mix-up. guess (/ɡɛs/) and guessed (/ɡɛst/) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “guess” sits inside “guessed”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11551, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
guess is recorded at frequency rank #694, classified as averb, pronounced /ɡɛs/. guessed is at rank #10,857, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɡɛst/.
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 11551, this pair ranks #486,405 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of guess vs guessed
Shared letters: egsu. Private to "guess": -. Private to "guessed": d.
"guess" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "guessed" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "guess" for "guessed" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "guess" or "guessed" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "guess" and "guessed" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "guess" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "guessed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #486,405 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "guess" and "guessed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guess vs gutless". 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 #486,405 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.