Allah
/əˈlɑː/
"allah" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Allah” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,384 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #8,384
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - God, in Islamic or Arabic contexts
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Allah |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /əˈlɑː/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #8,384 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Allah” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Allah is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈlɑː/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,384 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "God, in Islamic or Arabic contexts".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for Allah, with forms such as "alah", "alalh", and "allahh". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ally", "alma", "alta", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Arabic اللّٰه (allāh), contraction of اَل (al-, “the”) + إِلَه (ʔilah, “deity”); cognate with the Aramaic אלה (aláh) and אלהא (aláhâ), and Hebrew אֵל (él), אֱלוֹהַּ / אֱלֹהַּ (elóah) and אֱלוֹהִים \ אֱלֹהִים (elohím); ultimately from Proto-Semitic *ʾil… The correct English form is Allah, spelled A-L-L-A-H.
Definition
- 1God, in Islamic or Arabic contexts
Etymology
From Arabic اللّٰه (allāh), contraction of اَل (al-, “the”) + إِلَه (ʔilah, “deity”); cognate with the Aramaic אלה (aláh) and אלהא (aláhâ), and Hebrew אֵל (él), אֱלוֹהַּ / אֱלֹהַּ (elóah) and אֱלוֹהִים \ אֱלֹהִים (elohím); ultimately from Proto-Semitic *ʾil-.-.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alah,alalh,allahh,allha,lalah
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Allah - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "Allah"?
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Using “Allah”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-L-L-A-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /əˈlɑː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ally” - see the side-by-side comparison. Allah vs ally
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.