Which to use
“child” is a noun and “chilly” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #500
- “child” frequency rank
- #14,916
- “chilly” frequency rank
- 15416
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | child | chilly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person who has not yet reached adulthood, whether natural (puberty), cultural (initiation), or legal (majority). | Cold enough to cause discomfort. |
Where the eye mixes child and chilly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: child vs chilly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: child is /tʃaɪld/ while chilly is /ˈt͡ʃɪli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15416, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
child is recorded at frequency rank #500, classified as anoun, pronounced /tʃaɪld/. chilly is at rank #14,916, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈt͡ʃɪli/.
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 15416, this pair ranks #464,102 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of child vs chilly
Shared letters: chil. Private to "child": d. Private to "chilly": y.
"child" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "chilly" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "child" and "chilly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "child" or "chilly" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "child" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "chilly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #464,102 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "child" and "chilly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Cally vs chilly". 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 #464,102 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.