Which to use
“piped” and “poked” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #30,536
- “piped” frequency rank
- #21,618
- “poked” frequency rank
- 52154
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piped | poked |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of pipe | simple past and past participle of poke |
Where the eye mixes piped and poked
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. piped and poked follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: piped vs poked
A purely visual mix-up. piped (/paɪpt/) and poked (/pəʊkt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52154, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
piped is recorded at frequency rank #30,536, classified as averb, pronounced /paɪpt/. poked is at rank #21,618, tagged as averb, pronounced /pəʊkt/.
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 52154, this pair ranks #159,441 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of piped vs poked
Shared letters: dep. Private to "piped": i. Private to "poked": ko.
"piped" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "poked" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "piped" for "poked" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "piped" or "poked" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "piped" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #159,441 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piped" and "poked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piped 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 #159,441 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.