Which to use
“god” is a noun and “godly” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #239
- “god” frequency rank
- #20,649
- “godly” frequency rank
- 20888
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | god | godly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A deity or supreme being; a supernatural, typically immortal, being with superior powers, to which personhood is attributed. | Of or pertaining to a god |
Where the eye mixes god and godly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: god vs godly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: god is /ɡɒd/ while godly is /ˈɡɑdli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “god” sits inside “godly”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20888, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
god is recorded at frequency rank #239, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɒd/. godly is at rank #20,649, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɑdli/.
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 20888, this pair ranks #427,955 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of god vs godly
Shared letters: dgo. Private to "god": -. Private to "godly": ly.
"god" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "godly" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- godly ← gdoly · ggodly · goddly · godlly · godlyy · godyl · goldy · ogdly
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "god" and "godly" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "god" or "godly" 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 "god" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "godly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #427,955 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "god" and "godly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "godly vs googly". 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 #427,955 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.