Which to use
“thin” is an adjective and “thinly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,200
- “thin” frequency rank
- #20,513
- “thinly” frequency rank
- 23713
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thin | thinly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite. | In a thin, loose, or scattered manner; scantily; not thickly. |
Where the eye mixes thin and thinly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: thin vs thinly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: thin is /θɪn/ while thinly is /ˈθɪnli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “thin” sits inside “thinly”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23713, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thin is recorded at frequency rank #3,200, classified as anadj, pronounced /θɪn/. thinly is at rank #20,513, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈθɪnli/.
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 23713, this pair ranks #407,297 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of thin vs thinly
Shared letters: hint. Private to "thin": -. Private to "thinly": ly.
"thin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "thinly" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "thin" for "thinly" ever safe?
Frequency check: "thin" vs "thinly" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "thin" and "thinly" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "thin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thinly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #407,297 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thin" and "thinly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thickly vs thinly". 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 #407,297 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.