ails
/eɪlz/
"ails" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ails” is uncommon English (frequency #53,990 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,990
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - plural of ail
Corpus desk
Index EN-ails · ails · English
ails · rank #53,990 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #53,990
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH Agustin
Nearest frequency peer: Agustin (-1 rank slots)
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.
Long-tail ranks near “ails”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- afghani
afghani
46,015 corpus weight
- Agricola
Agricola
46,013 corpus weight
- Agustin
Agustin
46,012 corpus weight
- ails
ails
46,011 corpus weight
- Aishwarya
Aishwarya
46,008 corpus weight
- aks
aks
46,007 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “ails” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ails |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /eɪlz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #53,990 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ails” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ails is uncommon English at frequency #53,990 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /eɪlz/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "plural of ail".
ails doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is ails, spelled A-I-L-S.
Definition
- 1plural of ail
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ails", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).