Which to use
“great” is an adjective and “greatly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #138
- “great” frequency rank
- #4,090
- “greatly” frequency rank
- 4228
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | great | greatly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Taking much space; large. | To a great extent or degree. |
Where the eye mixes great and greatly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. great runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against greatly's 7 (CCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses great with greatly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: great is /ˈɡɹeɪt/ while greatly is /ˈɡɹeɪtli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “great” sits inside “greatly”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4228, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
great is recorded at frequency rank #138, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪt/. greatly is at rank #4,090, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪtli/.
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 4228, this pair ranks #519,582 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of great vs greatly
Shared letters: aegrt. Private to "great": -. Private to "greatly": ly.
"great" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "greatly" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "great" and "greatly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "great" or "greatly" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "great" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "greatly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #519,582 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "great" and "greatly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "great vs grt". 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 #519,582 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.