Which to use
“position” is a noun and “positional” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #624
- “position” frequency rank
- #29,044
- “positional” frequency rank
- 29668
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | position | positional |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A place or location. | Relating to the position of something. |
Letter map: position vs positional
Shared letters muted; letters that set position and positional apart highlighted. Shared run: 8.
Role in the sentence - position and positional
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: position is anoun and positionalanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “position” sits inside “positional”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29668, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
position is recorded at frequency rank #624, classified as anoun, pronounced /pəˈzɪʃ.ən/. positional is at rank #29,044, tagged as anadj.
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 29668, this pair ranks #361,049 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of position vs positional
Shared letters: inopst. Private to "position": -. Private to "positional": al.
"position" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC · "positional" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- position ← opsition · poistion · posiiton · posision · positino · positionn · positoin · posittion
- positional ← opsitional · poistional · posiitonal · positinoal · positioanl · positionall · positionla · positionnal
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "position" and "positional" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "position" or "positional" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "position" vs "positional" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "position" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "positional" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #361,049 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "position" and "positional" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "position vs positron". 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 #361,049 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.