referred
/ɹɪˈfɝd/
"referred" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“referred” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,460 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #2,460
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - simple past and past participle of refer
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 | referred |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɹɪˈfɝd/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #2,460 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “referred” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for referred is 8 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹɪˈfɝd/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,460 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "simple past and past participle of refer".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for referred, with forms such as "erferred", "reefrred", and "refered". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "revered", "reserved", "reformed", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is referred, spelled R-E-F-E-R-R-E-D.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of refer
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: erferred,reefrred,refered,refererd,referrde,referredd,refferred,refrered,rfeerred,rreferred
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of referred - 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 “referred”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-E-F-E-R-R-E-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɹɪˈfɝd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “revered” - see the side-by-side comparison. referred vs revered
- 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.