fillvsfullConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#38,807
“fill” frequency rank
#7,698
“full” frequency rank
46505
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fill full
Definition Aussitôt, immédiatement, sitôt, tout de suite, d’abord. Plein.

Where the eye mixes fill and full

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

4 ch
fill
4 ch
full

Look-alike desk: fill vs full

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fill is \ˈfiɫ\ while full is \ful\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - i in “fill” becomes u in “full”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46505, 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\. full is at rank #7,698, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ful\.

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 46505, this pair ranks #194,386 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fill vs full

Shared letters: fl. Private to "fill": i. Private to "full": u.

"fill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "full" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fillffill · flil · ifll
  • fullffull · flul · ful · ufll

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fill" and "full" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fill" is an adverb and "full" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fill" vs "full" - which ranks higher?
"full" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,698 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "full" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,386 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fill" and "full" 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 #194,386 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