Which to use
“material” is an adjective and “materially” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,198
- “material” frequency rank
- #18,132
- “materially” frequency rank
- 19330
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | material | materially |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of, relating to, or consisting of matter, especially physical. | In a material manner; with regard to physical things or characteristics. |
Letter map: material vs materially
Shared letters muted; letters that set material and materially apart highlighted. Shared run: 8.
Part-of-speech tell for material / materially
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: material is anadjective and materiallyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “material” sits inside “materially”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19330, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
material is recorded at frequency rank #1,198, classified as anadj, pronounced /məˈtɪə.ɹi.əl/. materially is at rank #18,132, 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 19330, this pair ranks #438,929 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of material vs materially
Shared letters: aeilmrt. Private to "material": -. Private to "materially": y.
"material" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC · "materially" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- material ← amterial · maetrial · mateiral · materail · materiall · materila · materrial · matreial
- materially ← amterially · maetrially · mateirally · materailly · materiallyy · materialy · materialyl · materilaly
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "material" for "materially" ever safe?
Frequency check: "material" vs "materially" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pair "material" vs "materially" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "material" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "materially" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #438,929 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "material" and "materially" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "materia vs material". 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 #438,929 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.