leapedvsloopedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#38,472
“leaped” frequency rank
#30,869
“looped” frequency rank
69341
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leaped looped
Definition simple past and past participle of leap simple past and past participle of loop

Where the eye mixes leaped and looped

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. leaped and looped follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
leaped
6 ch
looped

Why the eye confuses leaped with looped

A purely visual mix-up. leaped (/liːpt/) and looped (/luːpt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69341, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leaped is recorded at frequency rank #38,472, classified as averb, pronounced /liːpt/. looped is at rank #30,869, tagged as averb, pronounced /luːpt/.

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 69341, this pair ranks #54,993 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of leaped vs looped

Shared letters: delp. Private to "leaped": a. Private to "looped": o.

"leaped" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "looped" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leaped ← elaped · laeped · leaepd · leapde · leapedd · leapped · lepaed · lleaped
  • looped ← llooped · looepd · loopde · loopedd · loopped · loped · lopoed · oloped

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "leaped" and "looped" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/liːpt/ versus /luːpt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "leaped" or "looped" show up more?
"looped" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,869 in our English list, against #38,472 for "leaped". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "leaped" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "looped" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,993 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leaped" and "looped" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leaker vs leaped". 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 #54,993 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