WildevswiltedWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Wilde is a name, wilted is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Wilde” is a name and “wilted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,623
“Wilde” frequency rank
#47,423
“wilted” frequency rank
64046
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Wilde wilted
Definition A surname from Middle English. Drooping, typically due to lack of water.

Letter map: Wilde vs wilted

Shared letters muted; letters that set Wilde and wilted apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. Wilde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against wilted's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Wilde
6 ch
wilted

Role in the sentence - Wilde and wilted

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Wilde is aname and wiltedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64046, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Wilde is recorded at frequency rank #16,623, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈwaɪld/. wilted is at rank #47,423, 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 64046, this pair ranks #79,737 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Wilde vs wilted

Shared letters: deilw. Private to "Wilde": -. Private to "wilted": t.

"Wilde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "wilted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wilde ← iwlde · widle · wildde · wiled · willde · wlide · wwilde
  • wilted ← iwlted · wiletd · willted · wiltde · wiltedd · wiltted · witled · wlited

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Wilde" for "wilted" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Wilde" is a name and "wilted" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Wilde" vs "wilted" - which ranks higher?
"Wilde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,623 in our English list, against #47,423 for "wilted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "Wilde" vs "wilted" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Wilde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wilted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,737 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Wilde" and "wilted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Willey vs wilted". 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 #79,737 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