Which to use
“swift” is an adjective and “swiftly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,635
- “swift” frequency rank
- #14,233
- “swiftly” frequency rank
- 19868
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | swift | swiftly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Fast; quick; rapid. | In a swift manner; quickly; with quick motion or velocity; fleetly. |
Where the eye mixes swift and swiftly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: swift is /swɪft/ while swiftly is /ˈswɪftli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “swift” sits inside “swiftly”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19868, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
swift is recorded at frequency rank #5,635, classified as anadj, pronounced /swɪft/. swiftly is at rank #14,233, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈswɪftli/.
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 19868, this pair ranks #435,160 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of swift vs swiftly
Shared letters: fistw. Private to "swift": -. Private to "swiftly": ly.
"swift" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "swiftly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV