Which to use
“enemy” is a noun and “every” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,038
- “enemy” frequency rank
- #158
- “every” frequency rank
- 2196
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | enemy | every |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Someone who is hostile to, feels hatred towards, opposes the interests of, or intends injury to someone else. | All of a countable group (considered individually), without exception. |
Where the eye mixes enemy and every
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. enemy and every follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between enemy and every
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: enemy is /ˈɛn.ə.mi/ while every is /ˈɛv.(ə.)ɹi/. 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 (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2196, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
enemy is recorded at frequency rank #2,038, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɛn.ə.mi/. every is at rank #158, tagged as adet, pronounced /ˈɛv.(ə.)ɹi/.
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 2196, this pair ranks #525,619 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of enemy vs every
Shared letters: ey. Private to "enemy": mn. Private to "every": rv.
"enemy" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV · "every" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "enemy" for "every" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "enemy" or "every" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "enemy" and "every" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "enemy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "every" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #525,619 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "enemy" and "every" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "elegy vs enemy". 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 #525,619 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.