Which to use
“built” is an adjective and “busily” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #895
- “built” frequency rank
- #48,642
- “busily” frequency rank
- 49537
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | built | busily |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | well-built, muscular or toned. | In a busy manner; actively. |
Letter map: built vs busily
Shared letters muted; letters that set built and busily apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. built runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against busily's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for built / busily
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: built is anadjective and busilyanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49537, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
built is recorded at frequency rank #895, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈbɪlt/. busily is at rank #48,642, tagged as anadv.
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 49537, this pair ranks #182,655 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of built vs busily
Shared letters: bilu. Private to "built": t. Private to "busily": sy.
"built" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "busily" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "built" for "busily" ever safe?
Which is more common, "built" or "busily"?
After this comparison
You've compared "built" and "busily". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "built" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "busily" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #182,655 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "built" and "busily" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "busby vs busily". 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 #182,655 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.