fillvsfixWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#38,807
“fill” frequency rank
#23,870
“fix” frequency rank
62677
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fill fix
Definition Aussitôt, immédiatement, sitôt, tout de suite, d’abord. Dose de drogue, généralement injectée par intraveineuse.

Where the eye mixes fill and fix

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
fill
3 ch
fix

Why the eye confuses fill with fix

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fill is \ˈfiɫ\ while fix is \fiks\. 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 (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62677, 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\. fix is at rank #23,870, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fiks\.

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 62677, this pair ranks #85,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fill vs fix

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fill": l. Private to "fix": x.

"fill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "fix" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fillffill · flil · ifll

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fill" and "fix" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fill" is an adverb and "fix" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fill" or "fix"?
"fix" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,870 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fix" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,902 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fill" and "fix" 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 #85,902 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