followed
/ˈfɒl.əʊd/
"followed" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“followed” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #946 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #946
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - simple past and past participle of follow
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 | followed |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈfɒl.əʊd/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #946 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “followed” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for followed is 8 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈfɒl.əʊd/. Corpus data places it at rank #946 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "simple past and past participle of follow".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for followed, with forms such as "ffollowed", "flolowed", and "folloewd". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "follows", "follower", "followup", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is followed, spelled F-O-L-L-O-W-E-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of follow
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ffollowed,flolowed,folloewd,followde,followedd,followwed,follwoed,fololwed,folowed,ofllowed
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of followed - 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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Using “followed”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-O-L-L-O-W-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈfɒl.əʊd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “follows” - see the side-by-side comparison. followed vs follows
- 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.