Which to use
“looked” and “loved” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #811
- “looked” frequency rank
- #1,088
- “loved” frequency rank
- 1899
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | looked | loved |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of look | simple past and past participle of love |
Where the eye mixes looked and loved
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. looked (/lʊkt/) and loved (/lʌvd/) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1899, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
looked is recorded at frequency rank #811, classified as averb, pronounced /lʊkt/. loved is at rank #1,088, tagged as averb, pronounced /lʌvd/.
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 1899, this pair ranks #526,352 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of looked vs loved
Shared letters: delo. Private to "looked": k. Private to "loved": v.
"looked" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "loved" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC