Which to use
“early” is an adjective and “ely” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #23,530
- “early” frequency rank
- #47,866
- “ely” frequency rank
- 71396
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | early | ely |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Précoce (pour un objet). | Imprécation. |
Where the eye mixes early and ely
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between early and ely
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: early is \ˈɝ.li\ while ely is \elʲ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71396, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
early is recorded at frequency rank #23,530, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈɝ.li\. ely is at rank #47,866, tagged as anoun, pronounced \elʲ\.
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 71396, this pair ranks #47,703 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of early vs ely
Shared letters: ely. Private to "early": ar. Private to "ely": -.
"early" · 5 letters · shape VVCCV · "ely" · 3 letters · shape VCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- early ← aerly · ealry · earlly · earlyy · earrly · earyl · eraly
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "early" for "ely" ever safe?
Which is more common, "early" or "ely"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "early" and "ely" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "early" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ely" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #47,703 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "early" and "ely" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ely vs EPO". 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 #47,703 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.