Which to use
“cultural” is an adjective and “culturally” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,819
- “cultural” frequency rank
- #12,218
- “culturally” frequency rank
- 14037
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cultural | culturally |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pertaining to culture. | In a cultural way. |
Where the spellings diverge
Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set cultural and culturally apart are highlighted. They share 8 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
cultural and culturally form a confusable pair in the English index, two distinct headwords that are easily confused because they look alike, sound alike, or both. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “cultural” sits inside “culturally” - close enough that the eye skips over the difference, far enough that meaning fully diverges. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14037, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cultural is recorded at frequency rank #1,819, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈkʌlt͡ʃ(ʊ)əɹəl/. culturally is at rank #12,218, 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 14037, this pair ranks #472,424 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Frequency comparison
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "cultural" and "culturally" be used interchangeably?
Remembering cultural vs culturally
The fastest way to pick the right one every time.
- Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “cultural”; for an adverb, it's “culturally”.
- See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “cultural” entry
- Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable