Spelling
Definately or definitely?
Definitely is the right spelling. Definately is a common misspelling of it.
DEFINATELY has A where DEFINITELY has I.
Why people write DEFINATELY
In an unstressed syllable, A, E, I and O all sound like a quick "uh", so the ear cannot tell which one is written.
Definitely has finite in it: de-FINITE-ly.
How often DEFINITELY is misspelled
In the web pages Google counted for its trillion-word corpus (Peter Norvig's word counts), DEFINATELY appears 109 times for every 1,000 DEFINITELY, about once for every 9 correct uses.
Is DEFINATELY a word?
No. DEFINATELY is not in NWL2023, Collins Scrabble Words or ENABLE, the word lists Scrabble and other word games use, so no word game accepts it. DEFINITELY is in all three and scores 17 points in Scrabble before bonus squares.
What definitely means
In a definite manner.
More words with the same mistake
The wrong vowel:
More spelling help
Commonly misspelled words, grouped by the mistake · Free printables and word games for teachers · Unscramble any letters