Which to use
“looked” and “looped” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #811
- “looked” frequency rank
- #30,869
- “looped” frequency rank
- 31680
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | looked | looped |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of look | simple past and past participle of loop |
Where the eye mixes looked and looped
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. looked and looped follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between looked and looped
A purely visual mix-up. looked (/lʊkt/) 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 differ by a single letter - k in “looked” becomes p in “looped”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31680, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
looked is recorded at frequency rank #811, classified as averb, pronounced /lʊkt/. 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 31680, this pair ranks #344,152 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of looked vs looped
Shared letters: delo. Private to "looked": k. Private to "looped": p.
"looked" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "looped" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "looked" and "looped" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "looked" vs "looped" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "looked" and "looped" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "looked" 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 #344,152 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "looked" and "looped" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "looped vs lope". 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 #344,152 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.