Which to use
“weakly” is an adjective and “weekly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #23,432
- “weakly” frequency rank
- #2,653
- “weekly” frequency rank
- 26085
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | weakly | weekly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Frail, sickly or of a delicate constitution; weak. | Once every week. |
Same sound, different letters: weakly vs weekly
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - weakly and weekly
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: weakly and weekly carry the same recorded pronunciation, /ˈwiːkli/. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anadverb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - a in “weakly” becomes e in “weekly”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26085, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
weakly is recorded at frequency rank #23,432, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈwiːkli/. weekly is at rank #2,653, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈwiːk.li/.
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 26085, this pair ranks #389,321 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of weakly vs weekly
Shared letters: eklwy. Private to "weakly": a. Private to "weekly": -.
"weakly" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV · "weekly" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "weakly" and "weekly" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "weakly" or "weekly"?
What to do next
"weakly" and "weekly" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "weakly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "weekly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #389,321 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "weakly" and "weekly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Wally vs weakly". 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 #389,321 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.