Which to use
“daily” and “deadly” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #899
- “daily” frequency rank
- #5,489
- “deadly” frequency rank
- 6388
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | daily | deadly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | That occurs every day, or at least every working day. | Subject to death; mortal. |
Where the eye mixes daily and deadly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. daily runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against deadly's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between daily and deadly
A purely visual mix-up. daily (/ˈdeɪli/) and deadly (/ˈdɛdli/) 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 6388, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
daily is recorded at frequency rank #899, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈdeɪli/. deadly is at rank #5,489, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdɛdli/.
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 6388, this pair ranks #511,626 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of daily vs deadly
Shared letters: adly. Private to "daily": i. Private to "deadly": e.
"daily" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "deadly" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "daily" for "deadly" ever safe?
Which is more common, "daily" or "deadly"?
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 "daily" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "deadly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #511,626 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "daily" and "deadly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "daily vs Darla". 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 #511,626 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.