siftedvssignedTell them apart

Which to use

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

#49,049
“sifted” frequency rank
#1,503
“signed” frequency rank
50552
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sifted signed
Definition Having undergone sifting. Having a signature; endorsed.

Letter map: sifted vs signed

Shared letters muted; letters that set sifted and signed apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
sifted
6 ch
signed

Pair insight - sifted / signed

sifted and signed 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50552, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sifted is recorded at frequency rank #49,049, classified as anadj. signed is at rank #1,503, tagged as anadj, pronounced /saɪnd/.

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 50552, this pair ranks #173,263 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sifted vs signed

Shared letters: deis. Private to "sifted": ft. Private to "signed": gn.

"sifted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "signed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • siftedisfted · sfited · sifetd · siffted · siftde · siftedd · siftted · sitfed
  • signedisgned · sgined · sigend · siggned · signde · signedd · signned · singed

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sifted" and "signed" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, 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 "sifted" or "signed" show up more?
"signed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,503 in our English list, against #49,049 for "sifted". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sifted" and "signed".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sifted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "signed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,263 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sifted" and "signed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sifted 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 #173,263 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