fillvsfindWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: fill is a adverb, find is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38,807
“fill” frequency rank
#22,266
“find” frequency rank
61073
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fill find
Definition Aussitôt, immédiatement, sitôt, tout de suite, d’abord. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de finden.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set fill and find apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
fill
4 ch
find

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fill is \ˈfiɫ\ while find is \fɪnt\. 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 (adverb vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61073, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fill is recorded at frequency rank #38,807, classified as anadv, pronounced \ˈfiɫ\. find is at rank #22,266, tagged as averb, pronounced \fɪnt\.

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 61073, this pair ranks #94,212 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fill vs find

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fill": l. Private to "find": dn.

"fill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "find" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fillffill · flil · ifll
  • findffind · fidn · findd · finnd · fnid · ifnd

Frequency comparison

fill#38,807
find#22,266

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fill" and "find" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fill" is an adverb and "find" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fill" or "find"?
"find" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,266 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.

Remembering fill vs find

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adverb, it's “fill”; for a verb, it's “find”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “fill” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list