fieldvsfillWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: field is a noun, fill is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#17,136
“field” frequency rank
#38,807
“fill” frequency rank
55943
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature field fill
Definition Champ (terre). Aussitôt, immédiatement, sitôt, tout de suite, d’abord.

Where the eye mixes field and fill

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

5 ch
field
4 ch
fill

Visual trap between field and fill

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: field is \fiːld\ while fill is \ˈfiɫ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55943, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

field is recorded at frequency rank #17,136, classified as anoun, pronounced \fiːld\. fill is at rank #38,807, tagged as anadv, pronounced \ˈfiɫ\.

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 55943, this pair ranks #124,194 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of field vs fill

Shared letters: fil. Private to "field": de. Private to "fill": -.

"field" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "fill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fieldfeild · ffield · fiedl · fieldd · fielld · filed · ifeld
  • fillffill · flil · ifll

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "field" and "fill" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "field" is a noun and "fill" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "field" or "fill"?
"field" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,136 in our French list, against #38,807 for "fill". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "field" and "fill" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "field" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fill" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #124,194 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "field" and "fill" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs fill". 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 #124,194 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