Which to use
“stifle” is a verb and “stifled” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,104
- “stifle” frequency rank
- #32,194
- “stifled” frequency rank
- 61298
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | stifle | stifled |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To make (an animal or person) unconscious or cause (an animal or person) to die by preventing breathing; to smother, to suffocate. | That has been interrupted, suppressed etc |
Letter map: stifle vs stifled
Shared letters muted; letters that set stifle and stifled apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. stifle runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against stifled's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for stifle / stifled
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: stifle is averb and stifledanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “stifle” sits inside “stifled”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
stifle is recorded at frequency rank #29,104, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈstaɪfl̩/. 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 61298, this pair ranks #95,056 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of stifle vs stifled
Shared letters: efilst. Private to "stifle": -. Private to "stifled": d.
"stifle" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV · "stifled" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "stifle" and "stifled" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "stifle" or "stifled"?
After this comparison
You've compared "stifle" and "stifled". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "stifle" 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 #95,056 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "stifle" 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 #95,056 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.