woefully
"woefully" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“woefully” has 10 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #32,251. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #32,251
- frequency rank, English
- 12,113
- “W” headwords
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - In a woeful manner
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 | woefully |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #32,251 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “woefully” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 10 spelling variants around woefully, anadverb. Corpus frequency is #32,251 among 12,113 “W” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for woefully, with forms such as "owefully", "weofully", and "woeffully". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "woeful", "wilfully", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English wofully, equivalent to woeful + -ly. The correct English form is woefully, spelled W-O-E-F-U-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1In a woeful manner
- 2To an unfortunately great extent.
Etymology
From Middle English wofully, equivalent to woeful + -ly.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- owefully
- weofully
- woeffully
- woefluly
- woefullyy
- woefuly
- woefulyl
- woeuflly
- wofeully
- wwoefully
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of woefully - 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
How do you spell "woefully"?
What does "woefully" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "woefully"?
What is the origin of the word "woefully"?
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Using “woefully”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-O-E-F-U-L-L-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “woeful” - see the side-by-side comparison. woefully vs woeful
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Same frequency band
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.