indentedvsintendedTell them apart

Which to use

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

#44,269
“indented” frequency rank
#2,045
“intended” frequency rank
46314
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature indented intended
Definition Cut in the edge into points or inequalities, like teeth; dented on the surface; jagged; notched; stamped in. Planned.

Where the eye mixes indented and intended

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. indented and intended follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
indented
8 ch
intended

Visual trap between indented and intended

A purely visual mix-up. indented (/ɪnˈdɛntɪd/) and intended (/ɪnˈtɛndɪd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they are an anagram pair: the same letters reordered. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46314, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

indented is recorded at frequency rank #44,269, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɪnˈdɛntɪd/. intended is at rank #2,045, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɪnˈtɛndɪd/.

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 46314, this pair ranks #212,943 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of indented vs intended

Shared letters: deint. Private to "indented": -. Private to "intended": -.

"indented" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "intended" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • indented ← idnented · inddented · indenetd · indennted · indentde · indentedd · indentted · indetned
  • intended ← inetnded · inntended · intedned · intendde · intendded · intendedd · intenedd · intennded

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "indented" for "intended" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɪnˈdɛntɪd/ versus /ɪnˈtɛndɪd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "indented" or "intended" show up more?
"intended" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,045 in our English list, against #44,269 for "indented". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "indented" and "intended" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "indented" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intended" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,943 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "indented" and "intended" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "indented vs indentured". 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 #212,943 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