AllavsalmWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Alla is a name, alm is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#33,112
“Alla” frequency rank
#43,024
“alm” frequency rank
76136
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Alla alm
Definition Obsolete form of Allah. Something given to the poor as charity: a singular gift of alms.

Letter map: Alla vs alm

Shared letters muted; letters that set Alla and alm apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
Alla
3 ch
alm

Role in the sentence - Alla and alm

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Alla is aname and almanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76136, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Alla is recorded at frequency rank #33,112, classified as aname. alm is at rank #43,024, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɑːm/.

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 76136, this pair ranks #30,970 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Alla vs alm

Shared letters: al. Private to "Alla": -. Private to "alm": m.

"Alla" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "alm" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Allaalal · lala

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Alla" and "alm" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Alla" is a name and "alm" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Alla" or "alm" show up more?
"Alla" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,112 in our English list, against #43,024 for "alm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Alla" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "alm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,970 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Alla" and "alm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alm vs amb". 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 #30,970 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list