wiltedvswindedTell them apart

Quick tell: wilted is a adjective, winded is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#47,423
“wilted” frequency rank
#34,351
“winded” frequency rank
81774
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wilted winded
Definition Drooping, typically due to lack of water. simple past and past participle of wind

Letter map: wilted vs winded

Shared letters muted; letters that set wilted and winded apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. wilted and winded follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
wilted
6 ch
winded

Grammar separator: wilted vs winded

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wilted is anadjective and windedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81774, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wilted is recorded at frequency rank #47,423, classified as anadj. winded is at rank #34,351, tagged as averb.

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 81774, this pair ranks #17,020 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of wilted vs winded

Shared letters: deiw. Private to "wilted": lt. Private to "winded": n.

"wilted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "winded" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wilted ← iwlted · wiletd · willted · wiltde · wiltedd · wiltted · witled · wlited
  • winded ← iwnded · widned · windde · windded · windedd · winedd · winnded · wnided

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wilted" for "winded" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wilted" is an adjective and "winded" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "wilted" or "winded" show up more?
"winded" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,351 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "wilted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "winded" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,020 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wilted" and "winded" 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 #17,020 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