early vs earth, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“early” is an adjective and “earth” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,784
“early” frequency rank: #14,785
“earth” frequency rank: 29569
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	early	earth
Definition	zeitig, eher ankommen	Erde, Erdball, Welt

Letter map: early vs earth

Shared letters muted; letters that set early and earth apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

early

5 ch

earth

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: early is anadjective and earthanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29569, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

early is recorded at frequency rank #14,784, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈɜː(ɹ).li]. earth is at rank #14,785, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 29569, this pair ranks #1,764,387 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of early vs earth

Shared letters: aer. Private to "early": ly. Private to "earth": ht.

"early" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV · "earth" · 5 letters · shape VVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

early ← aerly · ealry · earlly · earlyy · earrly · earyl · eraly
earth ← aerth · earht · earrth · earthh · eartth · eatrh · erath

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "early" and "earth" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "early" is an adjective and "earth" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "early" or "earth"?

"early" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,784 in our German list, against #14,785 for "earth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "early" and "earth". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "early" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "earth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,764,387 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"early" and "earth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "earth vs puzzles". Nearby pair
Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.