all
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "all", 3-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 "all" 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 "all" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
all is aEnglishdet. It means: Every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be plural or uncountable). Pronounced /ɔːl/. It ranks #32 in English word frequency. Often confused with as and at.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | all |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Det |
| IPA | /ɔːl/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #32 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for all is 3 letters long, classified as adet, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɔːl/. Corpus data places it at rank #32 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for all in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "as", "at", "an", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English all, from Old English eall, from Proto-West Germanic *all, from Proto-Germanic *allaz, of uncertain origin but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (“all”). Cognates Cognate with Scots a, a', aa, aal, aw (“all”), Yola aal, al, all, au… 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 all, spelled A-L-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions (the noun or noun phrase denoting the class must be plural or uncountable).
- 2Throughout the whole of (a stated period of time; generally used with units of a day or longer).
- 3Only; alone; nothing but.
- 4Any.
Etymology
From Middle English all, from Old English eall, from Proto-West Germanic *all, from Proto-Germanic *allaz, of uncertain origin but perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (“all”). Cognates Cognate with Scots a, a', aa, aal, aw (“all”), Yola aal, al, all, aul (“all”), North Frisian aal, aale, ale, ali, åle (“all”), Saterland Frisian al (“already”), aal (“all”), West Frisian alle (“all”), Dutch al (“all”), German and Luxembourgish all (“all”), Vilamovian oły, ołły (“all”), Yiddish אַלע (ale, “all”), Danish al (“all”), Faroese and Icelandic allur (“all”), Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish all (“all”), Norwegian Nynorsk aillj, all (“all”), Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌻𐍃 (alls, “all”); also Breton and Welsh holl (“all”), Cornish oll (“all”), Irish alig, eile, uile, uileag, uilig (“all”), Manx ooilley (“all”), Scottish Gaelic uile, uileag (“all”), Lithuanian aliái (“every”), Armenian ողջ (oġǰ, “entire, whole”). The dialectal sense “all gone” is a calque of German alle. The use in [Term?] (“who all, where all”) etc. also has equivalents in German (see alles).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #32 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "all"?
What does "all" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "all"?
How do you pronounce "all"?
What is the origin of the word "all"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: