Which to use
“afield” is an adverb and “airfield” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,808
- “afield” frequency rank
- #19,754
- “airfield” frequency rank
- 48562
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | afield | airfield |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Away (from the home or starting point, physical or conceptual). (Often preceded by far, farther, or further.) | An open field designated for the taking off and landing of aircraft, but which, unlike an airport, does not necessarily have terminals or paved runways. |
Letter map: afield vs airfield
Shared letters muted; letters that set afield and airfield apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for afield / airfield
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: afield is anadverb and airfieldanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48562, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
afield is recorded at frequency rank #28,808, classified as anadv, pronounced /əˈfiːld/. airfield is at rank #19,754, tagged as anoun.
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 48562, this pair ranks #191,862 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of afield vs airfield
Shared letters: adefil. Private to "afield": -. Private to "airfield": r.
"afield" · 6 letters · shape VCVVCC · "airfield" · 8 letters · shape VVCCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "afield" and "airfield" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "afield" or "airfield"?
What to do next
Pair "afield" vs "airfield" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "afield" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "airfield" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #191,862 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "afield" and "airfield" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afield vs Anfield". 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
Confusion rank #191,862 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.