heartilyvsheavilyWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#32,431
“heartily” frequency rank
#2,793
“heavily” frequency rank
35224
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heartily heavily
Definition In a hearty manner. With a great weight.

Where the eye mixes heartily and heavily

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

8 ch
heartily
7 ch
heavily

Visual trap between heartily and heavily

A purely visual mix-up. heartily (/ˈhɑːtɪli/) and heavily (/ˈhɛvɪli/) 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 35224, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heartily is recorded at frequency rank #32,431, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈhɑːtɪli/. heavily is at rank #2,793, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈhɛvɪli/.

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 35224, this pair ranks #313,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of heartily vs heavily

Shared letters: aehily. Private to "heartily": rt. Private to "heavily": v.

"heartily" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV  ·  "heavily" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heartily ← ehartily · haertily · hearitly · hearrtily · heartilly · heartilyy · heartiyl · heartliy
  • heavily ← ehavily · haevily · heaivly · heavilly · heavilyy · heaviyl · heavliy · heavvily

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "heartily" and "heavily" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈhɑːtɪli/ versus /ˈhɛvɪli/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "heartily" or "heavily"?
"heavily" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,793 in our English list, against #32,431 for "heartily". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "heartily" and "heavily" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heartily" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heavily" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #313,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heartily" and "heavily" 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 #313,821 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