willedvswiltedWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#24,058
“willed” frequency rank
#47,423
“wilted” frequency rank
71481
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature willed wilted
Definition Having a document specifying inheritance. Drooping, typically due to lack of water.

Letter map: willed vs wilted

Shared letters muted; letters that set willed and wilted apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. willed and wilted follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
willed
6 ch
wilted

Corpus notes: willed and wilted

willed and wilted 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 differ by a single letter - l in “willed” becomes t in “wilted”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71481, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

willed is recorded at frequency rank #24,058, classified as anadj. 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 71481, this pair ranks #46,528 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of willed vs wilted

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

"willed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "wilted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • willed ← iwlled · wileld · willedd · wliled · wwilled
  • wilted ← iwlted · wiletd · willted · wiltde · wiltedd · wiltted · witled · wlited

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "willed" for "wilted" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - l in “willed” becomes t in “wilted”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "willed" vs "wilted" - which ranks higher?
"willed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,058 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "willed" and "wilted".

  • Full dictionary entry for "willed" 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 #46,528 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "willed" 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 #46,528 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