Which to use
“deadly” is an adjective and “dealt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,489
- “deadly” frequency rank
- #5,115
- “dealt” frequency rank
- 10604
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | deadly | dealt |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Subject to death; mortal. | simple past and past participle of deal |
Where the eye mixes deadly and dealt
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. deadly runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against dealt's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between deadly and dealt
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: deadly is /ˈdɛdli/ while dealt is /ˈdɛlt/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10604, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
deadly is recorded at frequency rank #5,489, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈdɛdli/. dealt is at rank #5,115, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈdɛlt/.
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 10604, this pair ranks #491,474 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of deadly vs dealt
Shared letters: adel. Private to "deadly": y. Private to "dealt": t.
"deadly" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "dealt" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "deadly" and "dealt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "deadly" or "dealt"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "deadly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dealt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #491,474 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "deadly" and "dealt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dealt vs Denali". 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 #491,474 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.