Which to use
“profound” is an adjective and “profoundly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,835
- “profound” frequency rank
- #14,816
- “profoundly” frequency rank
- 22651
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | profound | profoundly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Descending far below the surface; opening or reaching to great depth; deep. | With depth, meaningfully. |
Where the eye mixes profound and profoundly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. profound runs 8 letters (CCVCVVCC) against profoundly's 10 (CCVCVVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses profound with profoundly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: profound is /pɹəˈfaʊnd/ while profoundly is /pɹəˈfaʊndli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “profound” sits inside “profoundly”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22651, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
profound is recorded at frequency rank #7,835, classified as anadj, pronounced /pɹəˈfaʊnd/. profoundly is at rank #14,816, tagged as anadv, pronounced /pɹəˈfaʊndli/.
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 22651, this pair ranks #415,004 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of profound vs profoundly
Shared letters: dfnopru. Private to "profound": -. Private to "profoundly": ly.
"profound" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVVCC · "profoundly" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- profound ← porfound · pprofound · prfoound · proffound · profonud · profoudn · profoundd · profounnd
- profoundly ← porfoundly · pprofoundly · prfooundly · proffoundly · profonudly · profoudnly · profounddly · profoundlly
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "profound" for "profoundly" ever safe?
Which is more common, "profound" or "profoundly"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "profound" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "profoundly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #415,004 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "profound" and "profoundly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "profound vs pronoun". 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 #415,004 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.