Which to use
“looked” is a verb and “looney” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #811
- “looked” frequency rank
- #28,981
- “looney” frequency rank
- 29792
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | looked | looney |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of look | Alternative spelling of loony. |
Letter map: looked vs looney
Shared letters muted; letters that set looked and looney apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. looked (CVVCVC) and looney (CVVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Part-of-speech tell for looked / looney
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: looked is averb and looneyanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29792, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
looked is recorded at frequency rank #811, classified as averb, pronounced /lʊkt/. looney is at rank #28,981, tagged as anadj.
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 29792, this pair ranks #359,975 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of looked vs looney
Shared letters: elo. Private to "looked": dk. Private to "looney": ny.
"looked" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "looney" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "looked" and "looney" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "looked" vs "looney" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've compared "looked" and "looney". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "looked" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "looney" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #359,975 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "looked" and "looney" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Laney vs looney". 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 #359,975 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.