Which to use
“costly” and “courtly” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,899
- “costly” frequency rank
- #47,552
- “courtly” frequency rank
- 55451
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | costly | courtly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of high cost; expensive. | Befitting of a royal court; reflecting the manners or behaviour of people at court. |
Where the eye mixes costly and courtly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. costly runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against courtly's 7 (CVVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between costly and courtly
A purely visual mix-up. costly (/ˈkɒst.li/) and courtly (/ˈkɔːtli/) 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 55451, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
costly is recorded at frequency rank #7,899, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɒst.li/. courtly is at rank #47,552, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈkɔːtli/.
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 55451, this pair ranks #133,531 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of costly vs courtly
Shared letters: cloty. Private to "costly": s. Private to "courtly": ru.
"costly" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "courtly" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "costly" and "courtly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "costly" vs "courtly" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "costly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "courtly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #133,531 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "costly" and "courtly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "courtly vs covertly". 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 #133,531 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.