Which to use
“staunch” is an adjective and “staunchly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #22,515
- “staunch” frequency rank
- #42,423
- “staunchly” frequency rank
- 64938
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | staunch | staunchly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Not permitting water or some other liquid to escape or penetrate; watertight. | In a staunch manner. |
Letter map: staunch vs staunchly
Shared letters muted; letters that set staunch and staunchly apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. staunch runs 7 letters (CCVVCCC) against staunchly's 9 (CCVVCCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - staunch and staunchly
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: staunch is anadjective and staunchlyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “staunch” sits inside “staunchly”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64938, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
staunch is recorded at frequency rank #22,515, classified as anadj, pronounced /stɔːn(t)ʃ/. staunchly is at rank #42,423, 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 64938, this pair ranks #75,236 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of staunch vs staunchly
Shared letters: achnstu. Private to "staunch": -. Private to "staunchly": ly.
"staunch" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC · "staunchly" · 9 letters · shape CCVVCCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "staunch" and "staunchly" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "staunch" vs "staunchly" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pair "staunch" vs "staunchly" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "staunch" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "staunchly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #75,236 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "staunch" and "staunchly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "staunch vs stench". 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 #75,236 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.