Which to use
“willful” is an adjective and “willfully” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #26,308
- “willful” frequency rank
- #26,660
- “willfully” frequency rank
- 52968
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | willful | willfully |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | American standard spelling of wilful. | US standard spelling of wilfully. |
Letter map: willful vs willfully
Shared letters muted; letters that set willful and willfully apart highlighted. Shared run: 7.
Grammar separator: willful vs willfully
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: willful is anadjective and willfullyanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “willful” sits inside “willfully”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52968, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
willful is recorded at frequency rank #26,308, classified as anadj. willfully is at rank #26,660, 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 52968, this pair ranks #152,736 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of willful vs willfully
Shared letters: filuw. Private to "willful": -. Private to "willfully": y.
"willful" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC · "willfully" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "willful" for "willfully" ever safe?
Which is more common, "willful" or "willfully"?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "willful" and "willfully".
- Full dictionary entry for "willful" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "willfully" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #152,736 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "willful" and "willfully" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wilfully vs willfully". 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 #152,736 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.