Which to use
“affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,510
- “affect” frequency rank
- #1,015
- “effect” frequency rank
- 99
- confusion score
“Affect” is almost always the verb — to affect something is to influence it. “Effect” is almost always the noun — an effect is the result. (Each has a rarer flip side: “effect” can be a verb meaning to bring about, and “affect” a noun in psychology.)
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | affect | effect |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To influence or alter. | The result or outcome of a cause. |
Where the eye mixes affect and effect
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: affect is /əˈfɛkt/ while effect is /ɪˈfɛkt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “affect” becomes e in “effect”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 99, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
affect is recorded at frequency rank #2,510, classified as averb, pronounced /əˈfɛkt/. effect is at rank #1,015, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɪˈfɛkt/.
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 99, this pair ranks #529,885 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of affect vs effect
Shared letters: ceft. Private to "affect": a. Private to "effect": -.
"affect" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "effect" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC