Which to use
“impossible” is an adjective and “impossibly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,724
- “impossible” frequency rank
- #30,091
- “impossibly” frequency rank
- 31815
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | impossible | impossibly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Not possible; not able to be done or happen. | Not possibly; in an impossible manner. |
Letter map: impossible vs impossibly
Shared letters muted; letters that set impossible and impossibly apart highlighted. Shared run: 9.
Grammar separator: impossible vs impossibly
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: impossible is anadjective and impossiblyanadverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “impossible” becomes y in “impossibly”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
impossible is recorded at frequency rank #1,724, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɪmˈpɒs.ɪ.bəl/. impossibly is at rank #30,091, 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 31815, this pair ranks #342,958 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of impossible vs impossibly
Shared letters: bilmops. Private to "impossible": e. Private to "impossibly": y.
"impossible" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCV · "impossibly" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- impossible ← immpossible · imopssible · imposible · imposisble · impossable · impossbile · impossibble · impossibel
- impossibly ← immpossibly · imopssibly · imposibly · imposisbly · impossbily · impossibbly · impossiblly · impossiblyy
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "impossible" and "impossibly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "impossible" or "impossibly"?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "impossible" and "impossibly".
- Full dictionary entry for "impossible" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "impossibly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #342,958 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "impossible" and "impossibly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "impassable vs impossible". 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 #342,958 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.