posedvspottedWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,510
“posed” frequency rank
#31,298
“potted” frequency rank
40808
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature posed potted
Definition simple past and past participle of pose simple past and past participle of pot

Letter map: posed vs potted

Shared letters muted; letters that set posed and potted apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
posed
6 ch
potted

Corpus notes: posed and potted

posed and potted 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 40808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

posed is recorded at frequency rank #9,510, classified as averb, pronounced /pəʊzd/. potted is at rank #31,298, tagged as averb.

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 40808, this pair ranks #264,210 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of posed vs potted

Shared letters: deop. Private to "posed": s. Private to "potted": t.

"posed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "potted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • posedopsed · poesd · posde · posedd · possed · pposed · psoed
  • pottedoptted · poted · potetd · pottde · pottedd · ppotted · ptoted

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "posed" for "potted" 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.
In ordinary English text, does "posed" or "potted" show up more?
"posed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,510 in our English list, against #31,298 for "potted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "posed" vs "potted" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "posed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "potted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,210 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "posed" and "potted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ponte vs potted". 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 #264,210 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