Which to use
“favourable” is an adjective and “favourably” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,322
- “favourable” frequency rank
- #31,981
- “favourably” frequency rank
- 46303
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | favourable | favourably |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Apt to win favour; pleasing. | In a favourable manner. |
Letter map: favourable vs favourably
Shared letters muted; letters that set favourable and favourably apart highlighted. Shared run: 9. favourable and favourably follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for favourable / favourably
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: favourable is anadjective and favourablyanadverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “favourable” becomes y in “favourably”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
favourable is recorded at frequency rank #14,322, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfeɪv(ə)ɹəbəl/. favourably is at rank #31,981, 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 46303, this pair ranks #213,049 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of favourable vs favourably
Shared letters: abfloruv. Private to "favourable": e. Private to "favourably": y.
"favourable" · 10 letters · shape CVCVVCVCCV · "favourably" · 10 letters · shape CVCVVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- favourable ← afvourable · faovurable · favoruable · favouarble · favourabble · favourabel · favourablle · favouralbe
- favourably ← afvourably · faovurably · favoruably · favouarbly · favourabbly · favourablly · favourablyy · favourabyl
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "favourable" for "favourably" ever safe?
Which is more common, "favourable" or "favourably"?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "favourable" and "favourably".
- Full dictionary entry for "favourable" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "favourably" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #213,049 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "favourable" and "favourably" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "favorably vs favourably". 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 #213,049 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.