Which to use
“piqued” is a verb and “pitted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #40,391
- “piqued” frequency rank
- #23,631
- “pitted” frequency rank
- 64022
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | piqued | pitted |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of pique | Having a surface marked by pits; pockmarked or alveolate. |
Letter map: piqued vs pitted
Shared letters muted; letters that set piqued and pitted apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. piqued (CVCVVC) and pitted (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Role in the sentence - piqued and pitted
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: piqued is averb and pittedanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64022, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
piqued is recorded at frequency rank #40,391, classified as averb, pronounced /piːkt/. pitted is at rank #23,631, tagged as anadj.
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 64022, this pair ranks #79,862 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of piqued vs pitted
Shared letters: deip. Private to "piqued": qu. Private to "pitted": t.
"piqued" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "pitted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "piqued" and "pitted" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "piqued" or "pitted" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "piqued" and "pitted". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "piqued" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pitted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #79,862 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "piqued" and "pitted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peeked vs piqued". 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 #79,862 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.