addled
/ˈæ.dəld/
"addled" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“addled” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #49,172. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #49,172
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 8
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - simple past and past participle of addle
Corpus desk
Index EN-addled · addled · English
addled · rank #49,172 · 7 variants · 8 confusables
- FREQ-MID #49,172
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 8 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH Aeneas
Nearest frequency peer: Aeneas (+2 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “addled”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- abetted
abetted
50,834 corpus weight
- addled
addled
50,829 corpus weight
- Aeneas
Aeneas
50,827 corpus weight
- aftershave
aftershave
50,825 corpus weight
- airdrop
airdrop
50,823 corpus weight
- Akram
Akram
50,822 corpus weight
What this shows “addled” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | addled |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈæ.dəld/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #49,172 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “addled”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around addled (IPA /ˈæ.dəld/), averb. Corpus frequency is #49,172 among 3,931 “A” headwords. Dominant gloss: "simple past and past participle of addle".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for addled, with forms such as "addeld", "addlde", and "addledd". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "aided", "Adele", "Adler", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English addledd, adyld, equivalent to addle (“urine, liquid filth”) + -ed. Addle derives from Old English adel, adela (“mud, mire, liquid manure”), cognate with Old Swedish adel (“urine”), Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal (“manure”). Used in no… The correct English form is addled, spelled A-D-D-L-E-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of addle
Etymology
From Middle English addledd, adyld, equivalent to addle (“urine, liquid filth”) + -ed. Addle derives from Old English adel, adela (“mud, mire, liquid manure”), cognate with Old Swedish adel (“urine”), Middle Low German adel, Dutch aal (“manure”). Used in noun phrase addle egg (mid-13c.) “egg that does not hatch, rotten egg”, lit. “urine egg”, a calque of Latin ovum urinum, which is itself an erroneous calque of Ancient Greek οὔριον ᾠόν (oúrion ōión, “putrid egg”, literally “wind egg”), from οὔριος (oúrios, “of the wind”), from οὖρος (oûros, “fair wind”) (confused by Roman writers with οὔριος (oúrios, “of urine”), from οὖρον (oûron, “urine”)). Because of this usage, the noun in English was taken as an adjective from c. 1600, meaning “putrid”.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- addeld
- addlde
- addledd
- addlled
- adlded
- adled
- dadled
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of addled - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "addled", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).