drilled
/dɹɪld/
"drilled" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drilled” has 9 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #14,747. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #14,747
- frequency rank, English
- 26,416
- “D” headwords
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - simple past and past participle of drill
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 | drilled |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dɹɪld/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #14,747 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drilled” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 9 spelling variants around drilled (IPA /dɹɪld/), averb. Corpus frequency is #14,747 among 26,416 “D” headwords. Dominant gloss: "simple past and past participle of drill".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for drilled, with forms such as "ddrilled", "dirlled", and "driled". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "drills", "drill", "dried", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is drilled, spelled D-R-I-L-L-E-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of drill
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ddrilled
- dirlled
- driled
- drileld
- drillde
- drilledd
- drliled
- drrilled
- rdilled
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drilled - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “drilled”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-I-L-L-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɹɪld/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “drills” - see the side-by-side comparison. drilled vs drills
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Same frequency band
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.