Which to use
“measles” is a noun and “measly” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,887
- “measles” frequency rank
- #37,570
- “measly” frequency rank
- 56457
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | measles | measly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An acute and highly contagious disease which often afflicts children caused by the virus Measles morbillivirus and causing red rashes, fever, runny nose, coughing, and red eyes. | Particularly of pigs or pork: infected with larval tapeworms or trichinae (parasitic roundworms). |
Where the eye mixes measles and measly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. measles runs 7 letters (CVVCCVC) against measly's 6 (CVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between measles and measly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: measles is /ˈmizəlz/ while measly is /ˈmiːzli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56457, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
measles is recorded at frequency rank #18,887, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈmizəlz/. measly is at rank #37,570, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈmiːzli/.
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 56457, this pair ranks #126,160 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of measles vs measly
Shared letters: aelms. Private to "measles": -. Private to "measly": y.
"measles" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC · "measly" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "measles" and "measly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "measles" or "measly" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "measles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "measly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #126,160 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "measles" and "measly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "measly vs Mersey". 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 #126,160 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.