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PlainSpell

align

UK /əˈlaɪn/verb

align is spelled A-L-I-G-N. The wrong spelling people search most is allign: about 310 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 27 of all searches for the word. Align is a verb meaning “To form a line; to fall into line”.

How many letters and syllables are in align?

Letters5: A-L-I-G-N
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing4.3 times per million words; the 12,397th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, allign, about 310 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell align?

Align is spelled A-L-I-G-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 27 of the searches for align in either form.

alignthe right spelling8,190 searches a month
allignan extra l310 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.

How common is align?

Align appears 4.3 times per million words in written English, the 12,397th 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 pronounce align?

  • UK /əˈlaɪn/
  • UK /æˈlaɪn/

Align has 2 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-align.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with align

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

align vs aline70 G

Also written: aline.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with align?

4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as align from its last stressed vowel (/aɪn/, British pronunciation):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: liang.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of align

  • aligns present, singular, he/she/it
  • aligning participle, present
  • aligned participle, past
  • aline

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

What does align mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To form a line; to fall into line.

    The pedestrians aligned in such a way that from above they made a pyramidal pattern.

  2. 2

    To adjust to a line; to range or form in line; to bring into line.

  3. 3

    To organize in a consistent, defined way, perhaps in an abstract sense.

  4. 4

    To identify (oneself) with, match, or support the behaviour, thoughts, etc. of another person, organization, or country.

  5. 5

    To store (data) in a way that is consistent with the memory architecture, i.e. by beginning each item at an offset equal to some multiple of the word size.

  6. 6

    To organize a linear arrangement of DNA, RNA, or protein sequences which have regions of similarity.

  7. 7

    To identify entities that refer to the same real-world object in different knowledge bases.

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

Align in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchaligner (to form in line; to fall into line)
Germanin Linie stellen, anreihen, einordnen, angleichen, in Linie bringen, ausrichten (to form in line; to fall into line)
Portuguesealinhar-se (to form in line; to fall into line), alinhar (to adjust or form to a line)
Spanishalinearse (to form in line; to fall into line), alinear (to adjust or form to a line), adherirse, ingresar (to support or ally with someone, something, or…)

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 align come from?

From Middle English alynen, alinen (“copulate”), from Middle French aligner, from Old French alignier, from a- + lignier, from Latin lineare (“make straight or perpendicular”), from the noun linea (“line”), from līneus (“flaxen; flaxen [thing]”), from līnum (“flax”), likely ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *līnom (compare linen).

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

What to look up after align