internationalvsinternationallyWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#435
“international” frequency rank
#7,702
“internationally” frequency rank
8137
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature international internationally
Definition Of or having to do with more than one nation. In an international manner.

Letter map: international vs internationally

Shared letters muted; letters that set international and internationally apart highlighted. Shared run: 13. international runs 13 letters (VCCVCCVCVVCVC) against internationally's 15 (VCCVCCVCVVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

13 ch
international
15 ch
internationally

Grammar separator: international vs internationally

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: international is anadjective and internationallyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “international” sits inside “internationally”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8137, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

international is recorded at frequency rank #435, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˌɪn.təˈnæʃ.(ə.)n(ə)l/. internationally is at rank #7,702, 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 8137, this pair ranks #503,965 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of international vs internationally

Shared letters: aeilnort. Private to "international": -. Private to "internationally": y.

"international" · 13 letters · shape VCCVCCVCVVCVC  ·  "internationally" · 15 letters · shape VCCVCCVCVVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • international ← inetrnational · innternational · intenrational · interantional · internaitonal · internatinoal · internatioanl · internationall
  • internationally ← inetrnationally · innternationally · intenrationally · interantionally · internaitonally · internatinoally · internatioanlly · internationallyy

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "international" for "internationally" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "international" is an adjective and "internationally" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "international" or "internationally" show up more?
"international" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #435 in our English list, against #7,702 for "internationally". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "international" and "internationally". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "international" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "internationally" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #503,965 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "international" and "internationally" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Internationale vs internationally". 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 #503,965 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