agley
/əˈɡleɪ/
"agley" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“agley” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Wrong, awry, askew, amiss, or distortedly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-agley · agley · English
agley · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | agley |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /əˈɡleɪ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “agley” in English
Rare enough to double-check
agley is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed /əˈɡleɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Wrong, awry, askew, amiss, or distortedly.".
agley has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Scots agley. The correct English form is agley, spelled A-G-L-E-Y.
Definition
- 1Wrong, awry, askew, amiss, or distortedly.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how agley appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
X tells of cavalry; of Sheridan, Hampton and Fitz Lee; Of Early’s Valley march, that Sheridan long held agley!
“I don't know if you know the meaning of the word ‘agley’, Kipper, but that, to put it in a nutshell, is the way things have ganged.”
Etymology
From Scots agley.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.