Appraise or apprise?
appraise is a verb meaning “To determine the value or worth of (something), particularly as a person…”; apprise is a verb meaning “To make (someone or oneself) aware of some information; to inform, to notify”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) appraise is about 4.4 times as common as apprise.
What is the difference between appraise and apprise?
| appraise | apprise | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb |
| Meaning | To determine the value or worth of (something), particularly as a person appointed for this purpose To consider comprehensively proscribedTo apprise, inform | To make (someone or oneself) aware of some information; to inform, to notify |
| Example | to appraise goods and chattels | The ears apprise the brain of sound |
| Forms | appraises, appraising, appraised | apprises, apprising, apprised |
| Pronunciation | /əˈpɹeɪz/ | /əˈpɹaɪz/ |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words | about once in every 13 million words |
Sources: appraise and apprise in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of appraise and apprise
appraise
- 1
To determine the value or worth of (something), particularly as a person appointed for this purpose
to appraise goods and chattels
- 2
proscribedTo apprise, inform
- 3
To consider comprehensively
- 4
To judge the performance of someone, especially a worker
At the end of the contract, you will be appraised by your line manager
- 5
To estimate; to conjecture
- 6
To praise; to commend
apprise
- 1
To make (someone or oneself) aware of some information; to inform, to notify
The ears apprise the brain of sound
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, appraise or apprise?
appraise appears about once in every 3 million words; apprise about once in every 13 million words.
appraise about once in every 3 million wordsapprise about once in every 13 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search appraise vs apprise?
“appraise vs apprise” is searched about 590 times a month on Google and 30 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“apprise vs appraise”, “appraise or apprise”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.