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PlainSpell

reliable

/ɹɪˈlaɪəbl̩/adjective, noun

reliable is spelled R-E-L-I-A-B-L-E. The wrong spelling people search most is realiable: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 103 of all searches for the word. Reliable is an adjective meaning “Suitable or fit to be relied on; worthy of dependence, reliance or trust; dependable, trustworthy”.

How do you spell reliable?

Reliable is spelled R-E-L-I-A-B-L-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 103 of the searches for reliable in either form.

reliablethe right spelling6,130 searches a month
realiablean extra a60 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

What does reliable mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Suitable or fit to be relied on; worthy of dependence, reliance or trust; dependable, trustworthy

    the best means, and the most reliable pledge, of a higher object

  2. 2

    Such that either a sent packet will reach its destination, even if it requires retransmission, or the sender will be told that it didn't.

noun

  1. 1

    Something or someone reliable or dependable

    the old reliables

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce reliable?

  • /ɹɪˈlaɪəbl̩/

Reliable has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-reliable.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of reliable

  • more reliable comparative
  • most reliable superlative
  • reliables plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is reliable?

Reliable appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,365th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you abbreviate reliable?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of reliable: Raft.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Reliable in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfiable, sûr (fit to be relied on)
Germanverlässlich, zuverlässig (fit to be relied on)
Portuguesefiável (fit to be relied on)
Spanishfiable, bienqueda (fit to be relied on), confiable (someone to be relied on)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does reliable come from?

From rely + -able.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).