waldvswalkedConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#44,013
“wald” frequency rank
#2,187
“walked” frequency rank
46200
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wald walked
Definition To govern; inherit. simple past and past participle of walk

Where the eye mixes wald and walked

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
wald
6 ch
walked

Look-alike desk: wald vs walked

A purely visual mix-up. wald (/wɔːld/) and walked (/wɔːkt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46200, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wald is recorded at frequency rank #44,013, classified as averb, pronounced /wɔːld/. walked is at rank #2,187, tagged as averb, pronounced /wɔːkt/.

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 46200, this pair ranks #214,022 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wald vs walked

Shared letters: adlw. Private to "wald": -. Private to "walked": ek.

"wald" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "walked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • waldawld · wadl · waldd · walld · wlad · wwald
  • walkedawlked · wakled · walekd · walkde · walkedd · walkked · wallked · wlaked

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wald" for "walked" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/wɔːld/ versus /wɔːkt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "wald" or "walked"?
"walked" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,187 in our English list, against #44,013 for "wald". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wald" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "walked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #214,022 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wald" and "walked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wald vs wawa". 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 #214,022 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