Which to use
“thick” is an adjective and “thickly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,265
- “thick” frequency rank
- #45,698
- “thickly” frequency rank
- 48963
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thick | thickly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension. | In a thick manner. |
Where the eye mixes thick and thickly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between thick and thickly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: thick is /θɪk/ while thickly is /ˈθɪkli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “thick” sits inside “thickly”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48963, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thick is recorded at frequency rank #3,265, classified as anadj, pronounced /θɪk/. thickly is at rank #45,698, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈθɪkli/.
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 48963, this pair ranks #188,135 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of thick vs thickly
Shared letters: chikt. Private to "thick": -. Private to "thickly": ly.
"thick" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "thickly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "thick" for "thickly" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "thick" or "thickly" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "thick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thickly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #188,135 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thick" and "thickly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thicket vs thickly". 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 #188,135 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.