Which to use
“laced” and “licked” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,882
- “laced” frequency rank
- #20,692
- “licked” frequency rank
- 40574
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | laced | licked |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fastened with lace or laces (light cordage). | Having been the target of a lick; touched by a tongue. |
Where the eye mixes laced and licked
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. laced runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against licked's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: laced vs licked
A purely visual mix-up. laced (/leɪst/) and licked (/lɪkt/) 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 40574, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
laced is recorded at frequency rank #19,882, classified as anadj, pronounced /leɪst/. licked is at rank #20,692, tagged as anadj, pronounced /lɪkt/.
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 40574, this pair ranks #266,321 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of laced vs licked
Shared letters: cdel. Private to "laced": a. Private to "licked": ik.
"laced" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "licked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "laced" and "licked" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "laced" vs "licked" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "laced" and "licked" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "laced" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "licked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #266,321 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "laced" and "licked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "licked vs linker". 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 #266,321 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.