Which to use
“unbearable” is an adjective and “unbearably” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,726
- “unbearable” frequency rank
- #45,141
- “unbearably” frequency rank
- 60867
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | unbearable | unbearably |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | So unpleasant or painful as to be unendurable. | In an unbearable manner, not bearably, in a way unable to be borne. |
Letter map: unbearable vs unbearably
Shared letters muted; letters that set unbearable and unbearably apart highlighted. Shared run: 9. unbearable and unbearably follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for unbearable / unbearably
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: unbearable is anadjective and unbearablyanadverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “unbearable” becomes y in “unbearably”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
unbearable is recorded at frequency rank #15,726, classified as anadj. unbearably is at rank #45,141, tagged as anadv.
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 60867, this pair ranks #97,650 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of unbearable vs unbearably
Shared letters: abelnru. Private to "unbearable": -. Private to "unbearably": y.
"unbearable" · 10 letters · shape VCCVVCVCCV · "unbearably" · 10 letters · shape VCCVVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- unbearable ← nubearable · ubnearable · unbaerable · unbbearable · unbeaarble · unbearabble · unbearabel · unbearablle
- unbearably ← nubearably · ubnearably · unbaerably · unbbearably · unbeaarbly · unbearabbly · unbearablly · unbearablyy
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "unbearable" and "unbearably" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "unbearable" or "unbearably" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've compared "unbearable" and "unbearably". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "unbearable" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "unbearably" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #97,650 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "unbearable" and "unbearably" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "unbearably vs unbeatable". 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 #97,650 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.