Which to use
“implicit” is an adjective and “implicitly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #16,049
- “implicit” frequency rank
- #21,546
- “implicitly” frequency rank
- 37595
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | implicit | implicitly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Suggested indirectly, without being directly expressed. | In an implicit or implied manner. |
Letter map: implicit vs implicitly
Shared letters muted; letters that set implicit and implicitly apart highlighted. Shared run: 8.
Part-of-speech tell for implicit / implicitly
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: implicit is anadjective and implicitlyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “implicit” sits inside “implicitly”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37595, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
implicit is recorded at frequency rank #16,049, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɪmˈplɪsɪt/. implicitly is at rank #21,546, tagged as anadv.
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 37595, this pair ranks #293,205 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of implicit vs implicitly
Shared letters: cilmpt. Private to "implicit": -. Private to "implicitly": y.
"implicit" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCVC · "implicitly" · 10 letters · shape VCCCVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- implicit ← imlpicit · immplicit · impilcit · implciit · impliccit · implicitt · implicti · impliict
- implicitly ← imlpicitly · immplicitly · impilcitly · implciitly · impliccitly · implicilty · implicitlly · implicitlyy
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "implicit" and "implicitly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "implicit" or "implicitly" show up more?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "implicit" and "implicitly".
- Full dictionary entry for "implicit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "implicitly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #293,205 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "implicit" and "implicitly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "implicate vs implicit". 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 #293,205 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.