piratedvspittedTell them apart

Which to use

“pirated” and “pitted” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,017
“pirated” frequency rank
#23,631
“pitted” frequency rank
58648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pirated pitted
Definition Synonym of pirate. Having a surface marked by pits; pockmarked or alveolate.

Letter map: pirated vs pitted

Shared letters muted; letters that set pirated and pitted apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. pirated runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against pitted's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
pirated
6 ch
pitted

Corpus notes: pirated and pitted

pirated and pitted are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pirated is recorded at frequency rank #35,017, classified as anadj. 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 58648, this pair ranks #111,194 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pirated vs pitted

Shared letters: deipt. Private to "pirated": ar. Private to "pitted": -.

"pirated" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "pitted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pirated ← iprated · piarted · piraetd · piratde · piratedd · piratted · pirrated · pirtaed
  • pitted ← iptted · pited · pitetd · pittde · pittedd · ppitted · ptited

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pirated" for "pitted" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "pirated" vs "pitted" - which ranks higher?
"pitted" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,631 in our English list, against #35,017 for "pirated". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pirated" and "pitted".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pirated" 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 #111,194 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pirated" and "pitted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pirated vs pleated". 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 #111,194 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