anvilvsavisWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“anvil” and “avis” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#27,361
“anvil” frequency rank
#32,685
“avis” frequency rank
60046
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature anvil avis
Definition A heavy iron block used in the blacksmithing trade as a surface upon which metal can be struck and shaped. advice; opinion; deliberation.

Letter map: anvil vs avis

Shared letters muted; letters that set anvil and avis apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. anvil runs 5 letters (VCCVC) against avis's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
anvil
4 ch
avis

Pair insight - anvil / avis

anvil and avis are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60046, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

anvil is recorded at frequency rank #27,361, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈæn.vəl/. avis is at rank #32,685, 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 60046, this pair ranks #102,518 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of anvil vs avis

Shared letters: aiv. Private to "anvil": ln. Private to "avis": s.

"anvil" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "avis" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • anvil ← anivl · annvil · anvill · anvli · anvvil · avnil · navil
  • avis ← aivs · aviss · avsi · avvis · vais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "anvil" and "avis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "anvil" or "avis" show up more?
"anvil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,361 in our English list, against #32,685 for "avis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "anvil" and "avis". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "anvil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "avis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #102,518 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "anvil" and "avis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Advil vs avis". 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 #102,518 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list