Which to use
“badly” and “barely” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,351
- “badly” frequency rank
- #3,041
- “barely” frequency rank
- 6392
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | badly | barely |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | In a bad manner. | By a small margin. |
Where the eye mixes badly and barely
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: badly vs barely
A purely visual mix-up. badly (/ˈbæd.li/) and barely (/ˈbɛə(ɹ).li/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6392, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
badly is recorded at frequency rank #3,351, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈbæd.li/. barely is at rank #3,041, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈbɛə(ɹ).li/.
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 6392, this pair ranks #511,611 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of badly vs barely
Shared letters: ably. Private to "badly": d. Private to "barely": er.
"badly" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "barely" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "badly" and "barely" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "badly" or "barely" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "badly" and "barely" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "badly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "barely" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #511,611 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "badly" and "barely" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "badly vs bandy". 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 #511,611 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.