Alla vs allow, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Alla” is a name and “allow” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,112
“Alla” frequency rank: #1,039
“allow” frequency rank: 34151
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Alla	allow
Definition	Obsolete form of Allah.	To let one have as a suitable share of something.

Letter map: Alla vs allow

Shared letters muted; letters that set Alla and allow apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch

Alla

5 ch

allow

Grammar separator: Alla vs allow

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Alla is aname and allowaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34151, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Alla is recorded at frequency rank #33,112, classified as aname. allow is at rank #1,039, tagged as averb, pronounced /əˈlaʊ/.

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 34151, this pair ranks #323,214 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Alla vs allow

Shared letters: al. Private to "Alla": -. Private to "allow": ow.

"Alla" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "allow" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

Alla ← alal · lala
allow ← alloww · allwo · alolw · alow · lalow

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Alla" for "allow" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Alla" is a name and "allow" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "Alla" or "allow" show up more?

"allow" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,039 in our English list, against #33,112 for "Alla". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "Alla" and "allow". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "Alla" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "allow" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #323,214 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Alla" and "allow" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Alla vs Asta". 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 #323,214 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.