Which to use
“starred” is a verb and “startled” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,125
- “starred” frequency rank
- #19,473
- “startled” frequency rank
- 30598
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | starred | startled |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of star | Surprised and slightly frightened. |
Letter map: starred vs startled
Shared letters muted; letters that set starred and startled apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. starred runs 7 letters (CCVCCVC) against startled's 8 (CCVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for starred / startled
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: starred is averb and startledanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
starred is recorded at frequency rank #11,125, classified as averb. startled is at rank #19,473, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈstɑɹt.l̩d/.
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 30598, this pair ranks #353,260 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of starred vs startled
Shared letters: aderst. Private to "starred": -. Private to "startled": l.
"starred" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC · "startled" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "starred" and "startled" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "starred" or "startled" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "starred" and "startled". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "starred" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "startled" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #353,260 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "starred" and "startled" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stapled vs startled". 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 #353,260 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.