Which to use
“look” and “looked” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #151
- “look” frequency rank
- #811
- “looked” frequency rank
- 962
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | look | looked |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To try to see, to pay attention to with one’s eyes. | simple past and past participle of look |
Where the eye mixes look and looked
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. look (/lʊk/) and looked (/lʊkt/) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “look” sits inside “looked”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 962, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
look is recorded at frequency rank #151, classified as averb, pronounced /lʊk/. looked is at rank #811, tagged as averb, pronounced /lʊkt/.
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 962, this pair ranks #528,412 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of look vs looked
Shared letters: klo. Private to "look": -. Private to "looked": de.
"look" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "looked" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC