Which to use
“looked” is a verb and “lookup” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #811
- “looked” frequency rank
- #34,576
- “lookup” frequency rank
- 35387
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | looked | lookup |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of look | An attempt to retrieve data. |
Letter map: looked vs lookup
Shared letters muted; letters that set looked and lookup apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. looked and lookup follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Role in the sentence - looked and lookup
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: looked is averb and lookupanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35387, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
looked is recorded at frequency rank #811, classified as averb, pronounced /lʊkt/. lookup is at rank #34,576, tagged as anoun.
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 35387, this pair ranks #312,443 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of looked vs lookup
Shared letters: klo. Private to "looked": de. Private to "lookup": pu.
"looked" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "lookup" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "looked" for "lookup" ever safe?
Which is more common, "looked" or "lookup"?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "looked" and "lookup".
- Full dictionary entry for "looked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lookup" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #312,443 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "looked" and "lookup" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lockup vs lookup". 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 #312,443 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.