willedvswittedWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#24,058
“willed” frequency rank
#34,749
“witted” frequency rank
58807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature willed witted
Definition Having a document specifying inheritance. having a specified form of wit (intellectual ability)

Letter map: willed vs witted

Shared letters muted; letters that set willed and witted apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. willed and witted 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
witted

Pair insight - willed / witted

willed and witted 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

willed is recorded at frequency rank #24,058, classified as anadj. witted is at rank #34,749, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈwɪtɪd/.

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 58807, this pair ranks #110,156 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of willed vs witted

Shared letters: deiw. Private to "willed": l. Private to "witted": t.

"willed" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "witted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • willed ← iwlled · wileld · willedd · wliled · wwilled
  • witted ← iwtted · wited · witetd · wittde · wittedd · wtited · wwitted

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "willed" for "witted" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "willed" or "witted" show up more?
"willed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,058 in our English list, against #34,749 for "witted". 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 "witted".

  • Full dictionary entry for "willed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "witted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,156 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "willed" and "witted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wilted vs witted". 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 #110,156 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