Which to use
“all's” is a contraction and “allay” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,679
- “all's” frequency rank
- #41,993
- “allay” frequency rank
- 72672
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | all's | allay |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction of all + is. | To make quiet or put at rest; to pacify or appease; to quell; to calm. |
Letter map: all's vs allay
Shared letters muted; letters that set all's and allay apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. all's runs 4 letters (VCCC) against allay's 5 (VCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for all's / allay
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: all's is acontraction and allayaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72672, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
all's is recorded at frequency rank #30,679, classified as acontraction. allay is at rank #41,993, tagged as averb, pronounced /əˈleɪ/.
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 72672, this pair ranks #42,285 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of all's vs allay
Shared letters: al. Private to "all's": s. Private to "allay": y.
"all's" · 4 letters · shape VCCC · "allay" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- allay ← alaly · alay · allayy · allya · lalay
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "all's" and "allay" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "all's" vs "allay" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "all's" and "allay".
- Full dictionary entry for "all's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "allay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #42,285 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "all's" and "allay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "allay vs Almaty". 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 #42,285 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.