Which to use
“wide” is an adjective and “widely” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,177
- “wide” frequency rank
- #2,814
- “widely” frequency rank
- 3991
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wide | widely |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a large physical extent from side to side. | In a wide manner; across a wide area. |
Where the eye mixes wide and widely
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wide is /waɪd/ while widely is /ˈwaɪdli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “wide” sits inside “widely”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3991, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wide is recorded at frequency rank #1,177, classified as anadj, pronounced /waɪd/. widely is at rank #2,814, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈwaɪdli/.
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 3991, this pair ranks #520,341 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of wide vs widely
Shared letters: deiw. Private to "wide": -. Private to "widely": ly.
"wide" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "widely" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV