Which to use
“racial” is an adjective and “racially” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,323
- “racial” frequency rank
- #17,929
- “racially” frequency rank
- 22252
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | racial | racially |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of or relating to a race (or a people). | Relating to race. |
Letter map: racial vs racially
Shared letters muted; letters that set racial and racially apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. racial runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against racially's 8 (CVCVVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Grammar separator: racial vs racially
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: racial is anadjective and raciallyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “racial” sits inside “racially”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22252, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
racial is recorded at frequency rank #4,323, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɹeɪʃəl/. racially is at rank #17,929, tagged as anadv.
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 22252, this pair ranks #417,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of racial vs racially
Shared letters: acilr. Private to "racial": -. Private to "racially": y.
"racial" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "racially" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "racial" for "racially" ever safe?
Frequency check: "racial" vs "racially" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "racial" and "racially".
- Full dictionary entry for "racial" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "racially" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #417,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "racial" and "racially" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "racial vs Randal". 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 #417,956 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.