hastilyvsheartilyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“hastily” and “heartily” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#19,610
“hastily” frequency rank
#32,431
“heartily” frequency rank
52041
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hastily heartily
Definition In a hasty manner; quickly or hurriedly. In a hearty manner.

Where the eye mixes hastily and heartily

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. hastily runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against heartily's 8 (CVVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
hastily
8 ch
heartily

Look-alike desk: hastily vs heartily

A purely visual mix-up. hastily (/ˈheɪstɪli/) and heartily (/ˈhɑːtɪli/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52041, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hastily is recorded at frequency rank #19,610, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈheɪstɪli/. heartily is at rank #32,431, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈhɑːtɪli/.

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 52041, this pair ranks #160,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hastily vs heartily

Shared letters: ahilty. Private to "hastily": s. Private to "heartily": er.

"hastily" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "heartily" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hastily ← ahstily · hasitly · hasstily · hastilly · hastilyy · hastiyl · hastliy · hasttily
  • heartily ← ehartily · haertily · hearitly · hearrtily · heartilly · heartilyy · heartiyl · heartliy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hastily" and "heartily" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈheɪstɪli/ versus /ˈhɑːtɪli/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "hastily" vs "heartily" - which ranks higher?
"hastily" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,610 in our English list, against #32,431 for "heartily". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "hastily" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heartily" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #160,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hastily" and "heartily" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "healthily vs heartily". 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 #160,354 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list