Which to use
“thicke” is an adjective and “thickly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #38,202
- “thicke” frequency rank
- #45,698
- “thickly” frequency rank
- 83900
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thicke | thickly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Obsolete spelling of thick. | In a thick manner. |
Letter map: thicke vs thickly
Shared letters muted; letters that set thicke and thickly apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. thicke runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against thickly's 7 (CCVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for thicke / thickly
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: thicke is anadjective and thicklyanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83900, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thicke is recorded at frequency rank #38,202, classified as anadj. 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 83900, this pair ranks #12,968 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of thicke vs thickly
Shared letters: chikt. Private to "thicke": e. Private to "thickly": ly.
"thicke" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV · "thickly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "thicke" and "thickly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "thicke" vs "thickly" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "thicke" and "thickly".
- Full dictionary entry for "thicke" 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 #12,968 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thicke" 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 #12,968 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.