devolved
"devolved" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“devolved” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #24,424 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #24,424
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - simple past and past participle of devolve
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 | devolved |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #24,424 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “devolved” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for devolved is 8 letters long, classified as a verb. Corpus data places it at rank #24,424 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "simple past and past participle of devolve".
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for devolved, with forms such as "ddevolved", "deovlved", and "devloved". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "devoted", "delved", "devolve", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is devolved, spelled D-E-V-O-L-V-E-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of devolve
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddevolved,deovlved,devloved,devolevd,devollved,devolvde,devolvedd,devolvved,devovled,devvolved,dveolved,edvolved
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of devolved - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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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Using “devolved”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-E-V-O-L-V-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “devoted” - see the side-by-side comparison. devolved vs devoted
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.