eaglevsearlyWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: eagle is a noun, early is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“eagle” is a noun and “early” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,205
“eagle” frequency rank
#23,530
“early” frequency rank
47735
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature eagle early
Definition Performance d’un joueur ou d’une joueuse qui réussit deux coups sous le par. Précoce (pour un objet).

Where the eye mixes eagle and early

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
eagle
5 ch
early

Look-alike desk: eagle vs early

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: eagle is \i.ɡœl\ while early is \ˈɝ.li\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47735, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

eagle is recorded at frequency rank #24,205, classified as anoun, pronounced \i.ɡœl\. early is at rank #23,530, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈɝ.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 47735, this pair ranks #184,545 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of eagle vs early

Shared letters: ael. Private to "eagle": g. Private to "early": ry.

"eagle" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV  ·  "early" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • eagleaegle · eagel · eaggle · eaglle · ealge
  • earlyaerly · ealry · earlly · earlyy · earrly · earyl · eraly

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "eagle" and "early" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "eagle" is a noun and "early" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "eagle" or "early"?
"early" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,530 in our French list, against #24,205 for "eagle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "eagle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "early" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #184,545 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "eagle" and "early" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "early vs ely". 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 #184,545 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list