alight
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 "alight", 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 "alight" 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 "alight" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
alight is aEnglishverb. It means: To make less heavy; to lighten; to alleviate, to relieve. Pronounced /əˈlaɪt/. Often confused with align and Alisha.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | alight |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /əˈlaɪt/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #28,812 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for alight is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈlaɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,812 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for alight, with forms such as "ailght", "algiht", and "aligght". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "align", "Alisha", "alright", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English alighten (“to descend from a place: to dismount, get off; to descend to a place: to arrive or stop (at a place); to land; to drop; to attack; of lightning: to strike; to leap on to, mount; to descend in rank; to cause (someone) to lose r… 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 alight, spelled A-L-I-G-H-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To make less heavy; to lighten; to alleviate, to relieve.
- 2Often followed by from or off: to get off an animal which one has been riding; to dismount; to descend or exit from a vehicle; hence, to complete one's journey; to stop.
- 3Often followed by at, on, or upon: of something aloft: to descend and settle; to land, to lodge, to rest.
- 4To come down or go down; to descend.
- 5Often followed by on or upon: of a blow, something thrown, etc.: to land heavily.
- 6Often followed by on or upon: to find by accident; to chance upon, to come upon.
- 7To arrive.
Etymology
From Middle English alighten (“to descend from a place: to dismount, get off; to descend to a place: to arrive or stop (at a place); to land; to drop; to attack; of lightning: to strike; to leap on to, mount; to descend in rank; to cause (someone) to lose rank; to come forth, spring from; to alleviate, relieve; (Christianity) of Jesus: to come down to earth from heaven, become incarnate; to descend (to hell); of the Holy Spirit, angels, miracles, etc.: to descend (from heaven); to descend (upon someone); to appear in a place”) [and other forms], from a merger of: * Old English ālīhtan (“to alight, dismount”), from ā- (prefix meaning ‘away, from, off, out’) + līhtan, līehtan (“to descend, alight, light; to make easy or light, alleviate, lighten, relieve”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lengʷʰ- (“not heavy, light”); and * Old English ġelīhtan (“to descend; to come down, dismount; to make easy or light, alleviate, lighten, relieve”), from ġe- (intensifying prefix, attached to verbs to indicate completeness or perfection) + līhtan, līehtan (see above). The English word is analyzable as a- (prefix meaning ‘away, from, off, out’) + light (“to ease, lighten; to take off; to unload; to dismount; (archaic) to come down, land; to dismount”). Cognates * Middle Low German erlichten (“to lighten”) * Old High German gilīhten (“to make less heavy, lighten”) (Middle High German gelīhten); Old High German irlīhten (“to alleviate”) (Middle High German erlīhten, modern German erleichten)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ailght,algiht,aligght,alighht,alightt,aligth,alihgt,allight,laight
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for alight
Misspelling Variants of "alight"
Frequency rank: #28,812 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: