eagerlyvsearlyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: eagerly is a adverb, early is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“eagerly” is an adverb and “early” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,153
“eagerly” frequency rank
#354
“early” frequency rank
15507
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature eagerly early
Definition In an eager manner. At a time in advance of the usual or expected event.

Letter map: eagerly vs early

Shared letters muted; letters that set eagerly and early apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
eagerly
5 ch
early

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: eagerly is anadverb and earlyanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15507, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

eagerly is recorded at frequency rank #15,153, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈiɡɚli/. early is at rank #354, tagged as anadj.

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 15507, this pair ranks #463,543 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of eagerly vs early

Shared letters: aelry. Private to "eagerly": g. Private to "early": -.

"eagerly" · 7 letters · shape VVCVCCV  ·  "early" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • eagerlyaegerly · eaegrly · eagelry · eagerlly · eagerlyy · eagerrly · eageryl · eaggerly
  • earlyaerly · ealry · earlly · earlyy · earrly · earyl · eraly

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "eagerly" and "early" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "eagerly" is an adverb and "early" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "eagerly" or "early"?
"early" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #354 in our English list, against #15,153 for "eagerly". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list