Which to use
“Digby” is a name and “dilly” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,418
- “Digby” frequency rank
- #44,739
- “dilly” frequency rank
- 82157
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Digby | dilly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A suburb of Exeter, Devon, England (OS grid ref SX9591). | Redolent of dill (the herb). |
Where the eye mixes Digby and dilly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: Digby vs dilly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Digby is /ˈdɪɡ.bi/ while dilly is /ˈdɪli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82157, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Digby is recorded at frequency rank #37,418, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈdɪɡ.bi/. dilly is at rank #44,739, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdɪli/.
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 82157, this pair ranks #16,276 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Digby vs dilly
Shared letters: diy. Private to "Digby": bg. Private to "dilly": l.
"Digby" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "dilly" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Digby" for "dilly" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "Digby" or "dilly" show up more?
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 "Digby" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dilly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #16,276 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Digby" and "dilly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dilly vs ditty". 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 #16,276 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.