Which to use
“selfish” is an adjective and “selfishly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,009
- “selfish” frequency rank
- #45,076
- “selfishly” frequency rank
- 51085
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | selfish | selfishly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Holding one's own self-interest as the standard for decision making. | In a selfish manner; with regard to private interest only or chiefly. |
Letter map: selfish vs selfishly
Shared letters muted; letters that set selfish and selfishly apart highlighted. Shared run: 7.
Part-of-speech tell for selfish / selfishly
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: selfish is anadjective and selfishlyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “selfish” sits inside “selfishly”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51085, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
selfish is recorded at frequency rank #6,009, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/. selfishly is at rank #45,076, 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 51085, this pair ranks #168,526 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of selfish vs selfishly
Shared letters: efhils. Private to "selfish": -. Private to "selfishly": y.
"selfish" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "selfishly" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "selfish" and "selfishly" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "selfish" or "selfishly" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "selfish" vs "selfishly" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "selfish" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "selfishly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #168,526 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "selfish" and "selfishly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "selfish vs shellfish". 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 #168,526 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.