Which to use
“thickly” and “thirdly” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #45,698
- “thickly” frequency rank
- #26,995
- “thirdly” frequency rank
- 72693
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thickly | thirdly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | In a thick manner. | In the third place; third in a row. |
Where the eye mixes thickly and thirdly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: thickly vs thirdly
A purely visual mix-up. thickly (/ˈθɪkli/) and thirdly (/ˈθɜːdli/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72693, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thickly is recorded at frequency rank #45,698, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈθɪkli/. thirdly is at rank #26,995, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈθɜːdli/.
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 72693, this pair ranks #42,204 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of thickly vs thirdly
Shared letters: hilty. Private to "thickly": ck. Private to "thirdly": dr.
"thickly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV · "thirdly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "thickly" and "thirdly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "thickly" vs "thirdly" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "thickly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thirdly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #42,204 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thickly" and "thirdly" 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 #42,204 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.