personallyvspersonalsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: personally is a adverb, personals is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“personally” is an adverb and “personals” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,638
“personally” frequency rank
#49,547
“personals” frequency rank
52185
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature personally personals
Definition In a personal manner. plural of personal

Letter map: personally vs personals

Shared letters muted; letters that set personally and personals apart highlighted. Shared run: 8. personally runs 10 letters (CVCCVCVCCV) against personals's 9 (CVCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
personally
9 ch
personals

Grammar separator: personally vs personals

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: personally is anadverb and personalsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

personally is recorded at frequency rank #2,638, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈpɜː.sə.nə.li/. personals is at rank #49,547, tagged as anoun.

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 52185, this pair ranks #159,194 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of personally vs personals

Shared letters: aelnoprs. Private to "personally": y. Private to "personals": -.

"personally" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCCV  ·  "personals" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • personally ← eprsonally · perosnally · perrsonally · persnoally · persoanlly · personallyy · personaly · personalyl
  • personals ← eprsonals · perosnals · perrsonals · persnoals · persoanls · personalls · personalss · personasl

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "personally" and "personals" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "personally" is an adverb and "personals" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "personally" or "personals" show up more?
"personally" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,638 in our English list, against #49,547 for "personals". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "personally" vs "personals" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "personally" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "personals" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #159,194 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "personally" and "personals" 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 #159,194 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