Which to use
“famous” is an adjective and “famously” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,526
- “famous” frequency rank
- #15,165
- “famously” frequency rank
- 16691
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | famous | famously |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Well known. | In a celebrated manner. |
Letter map: famous vs famously
Shared letters muted; letters that set famous and famously apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. famous runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against famously's 8 (CVCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - famous and famously
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: famous is anadjective and famouslyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “famous” sits inside “famously”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16691, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
famous is recorded at frequency rank #1,526, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfeɪ.məs/. famously is at rank #15,165, tagged as anadv.
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 16691, this pair ranks #456,149 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of famous vs famously
Shared letters: afmosu. Private to "famous": -. Private to "famously": ly.
"famous" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "famously" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "famous" for "famously" ever safe?
Which is more common, "famous" or "famously"?
What to do next
You've compared "famous" and "famously". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "famous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "famously" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #456,149 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "famous" and "famously" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fabius vs famous". 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 #456,149 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.