Which to use
“personable” is an adjective and “personally” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,332
- “personable” frequency rank
- #2,638
- “personally” frequency rank
- 44970
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | personable | personally |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of a person: having a pleasing appearance; attractive; handsome. | In a personal manner. |
Where the eye mixes personable and personally
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. personable and personally follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: personable vs personally
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: personable is /ˈpɜːsn̩əbl/ while personally is /ˈpɜː.sə.nə.li/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
personable is recorded at frequency rank #42,332, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈpɜːsn̩əbl/. personally is at rank #2,638, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈpɜː.sə.nə.li/.
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 44970, this pair ranks #225,642 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of personable vs personally
Shared letters: aelnoprs. Private to "personable": b. Private to "personally": y.
"personable" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCCV · "personally" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- personable ← eprsonable · perosnable · perrsonable · persnoable · persoanble · personabble · personabel · personablle
- personally ← eprsonally · perosnally · perrsonally · persnoally · persoanlly · personallyy · personaly · personalyl
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "personable" and "personally" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "personable" vs "personally" - 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 "personable" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "personally" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #225,642 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "personable" and "personally" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "personable vs personals". 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 #225,642 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.