# courtly vs covertly

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### courtly
*adjective · IPA /ˈkɔːtli/ · frequency rank #47,552*
Befitting of a royal court; reflecting the manners or behaviour of people at court.

### covertly
*adverb · frequency rank #36,094*
In a covert manner, secretly.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/courtly-vs-covertly