saltedvsskatedWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: salted is a adjective, skated is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“salted” is an adjective and “skated” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,217
“salted” frequency rank
#37,226
“skated” frequency rank
57443
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature salted skated
Definition To which salt has been added. simple past and past participle of skate

Letter map: salted vs skated

Shared letters muted; letters that set salted and skated apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. salted (CVCCVC) and skated (CCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
salted
6 ch
skated

Role in the sentence - salted and skated

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: salted is anadjective and skatedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57443, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

salted is recorded at frequency rank #20,217, classified as anadj. skated is at rank #37,226, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈskeɪtɪd/.

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 57443, this pair ranks #119,262 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of salted vs skated

Shared letters: adest. Private to "salted": l. Private to "skated": k.

"salted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "skated" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • salted ← aslted · saletd · sallted · saltde · saltedd · saltted · satled · ssalted
  • skated ← ksated · sakted · skaetd · skatde · skatedd · skatted · skkated · sktaed

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "salted" for "skated" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "salted" is an adjective and "skated" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "salted" or "skated" show up more?
"salted" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,217 in our English list, against #37,226 for "skated". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "salted" and "skated". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "salted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "skated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #119,262 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "salted" and "skated" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "skated vs skirted". 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 #119,262 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