faintly
/ˈfeɪntli/
"faintly" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“faintly” has 11 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #27,831. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #27,831
- frequency rank, English
- 2,507
- “F” headwords
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In a faint manner; very quietly or lightly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-faintly · faintly · English
faintly · rank #27,831 · 11 variants · 3 confusables
- FREQ-MID #27,831
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
- VAR-MID 11 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,507
- PHOTO-FINISH evocative
Nearest frequency peer: evocative (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “faintly”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- erode
erode
72,172 corpus weight
- evocative
evocative
72,171 corpus weight
- faintly
faintly
72,170 corpus weight
- fancies
fancies
72,169 corpus weight
- Federico
Federico
72,168 corpus weight
- fewest
fewest
72,167 corpus weight
What this shows “faintly” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | faintly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /ˈfeɪntli/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #27,831 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “faintly”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 11 spelling variants around faintly (IPA /ˈfeɪntli/), anadverb. Corpus frequency is #27,831 among 2,507 “F” headwords. Dominant gloss: "In a faint manner; very quietly or lightly.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for faintly, with forms such as "afintly", "fainlty", and "fainntly". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "fairly", "finely", "faint", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English feintli, feintliche, equivalent to faint + -ly. The correct English form is faintly, spelled F-A-I-N-T-L-Y.
Definition
- 1In a faint manner; very quietly or lightly.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how faintly appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
So this was my future home, I thought![…]Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
Faintlier, faintlier came the footfalls to his ear, until of all the faint sounds that came, by the abandoned air, to his ear, not one was a footfall, as far as he could judge.
Etymology
From Middle English feintli, feintliche, equivalent to faint + -ly.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- afintly
- fainlty
- fainntly
- faintlly
- faintlyy
- fainttly
- faintyl
- faitnly
- fanitly
- ffaintly
- fiantly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of faintly - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "faintly", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (11 here; floor ≥5).