immensevsimmenselyConfusable pair

Quick tell: immense is a adjective, immensely is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“immense” is an adjective and “immensely” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,556
“immense” frequency rank
#13,535
“immensely” frequency rank
22091
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature immense immensely
Definition Huge, gigantic, very large. Greatly; hugely; extremely; vastly; to a great extent.

Where the eye mixes immense and immensely

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. immense runs 7 letters (VCCVCCV) against immensely's 9 (VCCVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
immense
9 ch
immensely

Look-alike desk: immense vs immensely

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: immense is /ɪˈmɛns/ while immensely is /ɪˈmɛnsli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “immense” sits inside “immensely”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22091, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

immense is recorded at frequency rank #8,556, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɪˈmɛns/. immensely is at rank #13,535, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ɪˈmɛnsli/.

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 22091, this pair ranks #419,165 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of immense vs immensely

Shared letters: eimns. Private to "immense": -. Private to "immensely": ly.

"immense" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "immensely" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • immense ← imemnse · imense · immenes · immennse · immensse · immesne · immnese · mimense
  • immensely ← imemnsely · imensely · immenesly · immennsely · immenselly · immenselyy · immenseyl · immensley

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "immense" for "immensely" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "immense" is an adjective and "immensely" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "immense" or "immensely"?
"immense" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,556 in our English list, against #13,535 for "immensely". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "immense" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "immensely" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #419,165 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "immense" and "immensely" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "immense vs immerse". 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 #419,165 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