Which to use
“payed” is a verb and “peaked” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,911
- “payed” frequency rank
- #15,023
- “peaked” frequency rank
- 45934
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | payed | peaked |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Obsolete spelling of paid. | Having a peak or peaks. |
Letter map: payed vs peaked
Shared letters muted; letters that set payed and peaked apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. payed runs 5 letters (CVVVC) against peaked's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for payed / peaked
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: payed is averb and peakedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
payed is recorded at frequency rank #30,911, classified as averb. peaked is at rank #15,023, tagged as anadj, pronounced /piːkt/.
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 45934, this pair ranks #216,544 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of payed vs peaked
Shared letters: adep. Private to "payed": y. Private to "peaked": k.
"payed" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC · "peaked" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "payed" for "peaked" ever safe?
Frequency check: "payed" vs "peaked" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pair "payed" vs "peaked" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "payed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "peaked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #216,544 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "payed" and "peaked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "payed vs plied". 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 #216,544 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.