Which to use
“willed” is an adjective and “wished” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,058
- “willed” frequency rank
- #7,191
- “wished” frequency rank
- 31249
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | willed | wished |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a document specifying inheritance. | simple past and past participle of wish |
Letter map: willed vs wished
Shared letters muted; letters that set willed and wished apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. willed and wished follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Grammar separator: willed vs wished
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: willed is anadjective and wishedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31249, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
willed is recorded at frequency rank #24,058, classified as anadj. wished is at rank #7,191, tagged as averb, pronounced /wɪʃt/.
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 31249, this pair ranks #347,744 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of willed vs wished
Shared letters: deiw. Private to "willed": l. Private to "wished": hs.
"willed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "wished" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "willed" and "wished" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "willed" vs "wished" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pair "willed" vs "wished" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "willed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "wished" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #347,744 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "willed" and "wished" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "willed vs Willey". 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 #347,744 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.