meltedvsmeltonWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: melted is a verb, melton is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“melted” is a verb and “melton” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,917
“melted” frequency rank
#32,498
“melton” frequency rank
42415
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature melted melton
Definition simple past and past participle of melt A tough, short-napped material used for making overcoats.

Where the eye mixes melted and melton

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
melted
6 ch
melton

Look-alike desk: melted vs melton

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: melted is /ˈmɛltɪd/ while melton is /ˈmɛlt(ə)n/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42415, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

melted is recorded at frequency rank #9,917, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈmɛltɪd/. melton is at rank #32,498, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛlt(ə)n/.

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 42415, this pair ranks #249,425 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of melted vs melton

Shared letters: elmt. Private to "melted": d. Private to "melton": no.

"melted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "melton" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meltedemlted · meletd · mellted · meltde · meltedd · meltted · metled · mleted
  • meltonemlton · mellton · melotn · meltno · meltonn · meltton · metlon · mleton

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "melted" and "melton" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "melted" is a verb and "melton" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "melted" vs "melton" - which ranks higher?
"melted" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,917 in our English list, against #32,498 for "melton". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "melted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "melton" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #249,425 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "melted" and "melton" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mello vs melton". 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 #249,425 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list