interviewedvsintervieweeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: interviewed is a verb, interviewee is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“interviewed” is a verb and “interviewee” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,145
“interviewed” frequency rank
#41,700
“interviewee” frequency rank
48845
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature interviewed interviewee
Definition simple past and past participle of interview Someone being interviewed, i.e. the person answering the questions.

Where the eye mixes interviewed and interviewee

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 10 letters in sequence.

11 ch
interviewed
11 ch
interviewee

Visual trap between interviewed and interviewee

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: interviewed is /ˈɪn.tə.vjuːd/ while interviewee is /ˌɪn.tə.vjuːˈiː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - d in “interviewed” becomes e in “interviewee”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48845, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

interviewed is recorded at frequency rank #7,145, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈɪn.tə.vjuːd/. interviewee is at rank #41,700, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˌɪn.tə.vjuːˈiː/.

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 48845, this pair ranks #189,252 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of interviewed vs interviewee

Shared letters: einrtvw. Private to "interviewed": d. Private to "interviewee": -.

"interviewed" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCCVVCVC  ·  "interviewee" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCCVVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • interviewedinetrviewed · innterviewed · interivewed · interrviewed · interveiwed · intervieewd · interviewde · interviewedd
  • intervieweeinetrviewee · innterviewee · interivewee · interrviewee · interveiwee · intervieewe · interviewe · interviewwee

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "interviewed" and "interviewee" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "interviewed" is a verb and "interviewee" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "interviewed" or "interviewee" show up more?
"interviewed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,145 in our English list, against #41,700 for "interviewee". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "interviewed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "interviewee" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,252 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "interviewed" and "interviewee" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "interviewee vs interviewer". 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 #189,252 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