alaska
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "alaska", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "alaska" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "alaska" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Alaska is aEnglishname. It means: A state of the United States, formerly a territory. Capital: Juneau. Largest city: Anchorage. Postal code: AK. Pronounced /əˈlæs.kə/. It ranks #5,184 in English word frequency. Often confused with Alyssa and Alisha.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Alaska |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /əˈlæs.kə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #5,184 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Alaska is 6 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈlæs.kə/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,184 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for Alaska, with forms such as "aalska", "alaksa", and "alasak". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "Alyssa", "Alisha", "Alaskan", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Russian Аля́ска (Aljáska, “Alaska”), in turn from Aleut alaxsxaq (“a mainland”, literally “that toward which the action of the sea is directed”), composed of alag (“pertaining to the sea”) + -sxa (nominalizing suffix, yields 'the objective of action ex… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is Alaska, spelled A-L-A-S-K-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A state of the United States, formerly a territory. Capital: Juneau. Largest city: Anchorage. Postal code: AK.
- 2A peninsula in southwest Alaska, United States, in full the Alaska Peninsula.
- 3Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 4Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 5Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 6Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 7Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 8Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 9Several places in the United States, named for the state or territory.
- 10A barangay of Aringay, La Union, Philippines.
Etymology
From Russian Аля́ска (Aljáska, “Alaska”), in turn from Aleut alaxsxaq (“a mainland”, literally “that toward which the action of the sea is directed”), composed of alag (“pertaining to the sea”) + -sxa (nominalizing suffix, yields 'the objective of action expressed by the root') + -q (nominalizing suffix). Commonly misattributed to Russian ала (ala) + -ский (-skij, adjectival suffix).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aalska,alaksa,alasak,alaskka,alasska,allaska,alsaka,laaska
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Alaska
Misspelling Variants of "Alaska"
Frequency rank: #5,184 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: