Which to use
“palsy” is a noun and “paltry” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #22,462
- “palsy” frequency rank
- #34,625
- “paltry” frequency rank
- 57087
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | palsy | paltry |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Complete or partial muscle paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by a loss of feeling and uncontrolled body movements such as shaking. | Trashy, trivial, of little value. |
Where the eye mixes palsy and paltry
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. palsy runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against paltry's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between palsy and paltry
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: palsy is /ˈpɔːlzi/ while paltry is /ˈpɒltɹi/. 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 57087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
palsy is recorded at frequency rank #22,462, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɔːlzi/. paltry is at rank #34,625, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈpɒltɹi/.
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 57087, this pair ranks #121,705 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of palsy vs paltry
Shared letters: alpy. Private to "palsy": s. Private to "paltry": rt.
"palsy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "paltry" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "palsy" and "paltry" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "palsy" vs "paltry" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "palsy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "paltry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #121,705 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "palsy" and "paltry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palsy vs pappy". 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 #121,705 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.