Which to use
“indulged” and “indulgent” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #30,093
- “indulged” frequency rank
- #25,795
- “indulgent” frequency rank
- 55888
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | indulged | indulgent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having had all desires, wishes, and whims granted; having been brought up lavishly, wanting for nothing. | Disposed or prone to indulge, humor, gratify, or yield to one's own or another's desires, etc., or to be compliant, lenient, or forbearing. |
Where the eye mixes indulged and indulgent
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. indulged runs 8 letters (VCCVCCVC) against indulgent's 9 (VCCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between indulged and indulgent
A purely visual mix-up. indulged (/ɪnˈdʌld͡ʒd/) and indulgent (/ɪnˈdʌld͡ʒənt/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55888, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
indulged is recorded at frequency rank #30,093, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɪnˈdʌld͡ʒd/. indulgent is at rank #25,795, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɪnˈdʌld͡ʒənt/.
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 55888, this pair ranks #130,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of indulged vs indulgent
Shared letters: degilnu. Private to "indulged": -. Private to "indulgent": t.
"indulged" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC · "indulgent" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "indulged" and "indulgent" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "indulged" or "indulgent" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "indulged" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "indulgent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #130,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "indulged" and "indulgent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "indigent vs indulgent". 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 #130,190 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.