hopevshopedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#346
“hope” frequency rank
#4,456
“hoped” frequency rank
4802
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hope hoped
Definition To want (something) to happen, with a sense of expectation that it might [with that (+ clause); or (informal) with clause; or with so or (negative) not]. simple past and past participle of hope

Where the eye mixes hope and hoped

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hope
5 ch
hoped

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. hope (/həʊp/) and hoped (/hoʊpt/) 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 extra letter(s) - “hope” sits inside “hoped”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4802, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hope is recorded at frequency rank #346, classified as averb, pronounced /həʊp/. hoped is at rank #4,456, tagged as averb, pronounced /hoʊpt/.

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 4802, this pair ranks #517,622 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hope vs hoped

Shared letters: ehop. Private to "hope": -. Private to "hoped": d.

"hope" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "hoped" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hopehhope · hoep · hoppe · hpoe · ohpe
  • hopedhhoped · hoepd · hopde · hopedd · hopped · hpoed · ohped

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hope" and "hoped" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/həʊp/ versus /hoʊpt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "hope" or "hoped"?
"hope" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #346 in our English list, against #4,456 for "hoped". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list