immenselyvsintenselyWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#13,535
“immensely” frequency rank
#14,572
“intensely” frequency rank
28107
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature immensely intensely
Definition Greatly; hugely; extremely; vastly; to a great extent. In an intense manner.

Where the eye mixes immensely and intensely

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. immensely and intensely follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
immensely
9 ch
intensely

Visual trap between immensely and intensely

A purely visual mix-up. immensely (/ɪˈmɛnsli/) and intensely (/ɪnˈtɛnsli/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28107, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

immensely is recorded at frequency rank #13,535, classified as anadv, pronounced /ɪˈmɛnsli/. intensely is at rank #14,572, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ɪnˈtɛnsli/.

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 28107, this pair ranks #373,681 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of immensely vs intensely

Shared letters: eilnsy. Private to "immensely": m. Private to "intensely": t.

"immensely" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCV  ·  "intensely" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • immensely ← imemnsely · imensely · immenesly · immennsely · immenselly · immenselyy · immenseyl · immensley
  • intensely ← inetnsely · inntensely · intenesly · intennsely · intenselly · intenselyy · intenseyl · intensley

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "immensely" and "intensely" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɪˈmɛnsli/ versus /ɪnˈtɛnsli/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "immensely" vs "intensely" - which ranks higher?
"immensely" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,535 in our English list, against #14,572 for "intensely". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "immensely" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intensely" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #373,681 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "immensely" and "intensely" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "intensely vs inversely". 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 #373,681 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