Which to use
“sailed” is a verb and “stifled” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,109
- “sailed” frequency rank
- #32,194
- “stifled” frequency rank
- 43303
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sailed | stifled |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of sail | That has been interrupted, suppressed etc |
Letter map: sailed vs stifled
Shared letters muted; letters that set sailed and stifled apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for sailed / stifled
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sailed is averb and stifledanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sailed is recorded at frequency rank #11,109, classified as averb, pronounced /seɪld/. stifled is at rank #32,194, 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 43303, this pair ranks #241,286 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sailed vs stifled
Shared letters: deils. Private to "sailed": a. Private to "stifled": ft.
"sailed" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC · "stifled" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "sailed" and "stifled" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "sailed" or "stifled" show up more?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sailed" and "stifled".
- Full dictionary entry for "sailed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stifled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #241,286 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sailed" and "stifled" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stifled vs stilted". 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 #241,286 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.