Which to use
“sick” and “sickly” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,410
- “sick” frequency rank
- #28,018
- “sickly” frequency rank
- 29428
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sick | sickly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | In poor health; ill. | Frequently ill or in poor health; weakly. |
Where the eye mixes sick and sickly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. sick runs 4 letters (CVCC) against sickly's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between sick and sickly
A purely visual mix-up. sick (/ˈsɪk/) and sickly (/ˈsɪkli/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “sick” sits inside “sickly”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29428, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sick is recorded at frequency rank #1,410, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɪk/. sickly is at rank #28,018, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈsɪkli/.
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 29428, this pair ranks #363,087 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of sick vs sickly
Shared letters: ciks. Private to "sick": -. Private to "sickly": ly.
"sick" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "sickly" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sick" and "sickly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "sick" or "sickly"?
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 "sick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sickly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #363,087 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sick" and "sickly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sickly vs sucky". 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 #363,087 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.