Which to use
“wilted” is an adjective and “winked” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #47,423
- “wilted” frequency rank
- #38,245
- “winked” frequency rank
- 85668
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wilted | winked |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Drooping, typically due to lack of water. | simple past and past participle of wink |
Letter map: wilted vs winked
Shared letters muted; letters that set wilted and winked apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. wilted and winked follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Role in the sentence - wilted and winked
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wilted is anadjective and winkedaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85668, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wilted is recorded at frequency rank #47,423, classified as anadj. winked is at rank #38,245, tagged as averb, pronounced /wɪŋkt/.
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 85668, this pair ranks #10,017 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of wilted vs winked
Shared letters: deiw. Private to "wilted": lt. Private to "winked": kn.
"wilted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "winked" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "wilted" for "winked" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "wilted" or "winked" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "wilted" and "winked". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "wilted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "winked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #10,017 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wilted" and "winked" 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 #10,017 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.