alliance
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "alliance", 8-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 "alliance" 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 "alliance" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
alliance is aEnglishnoun. It means: The state of being allied. Pronounced /əˈlaɪ.əns/. It ranks #3,598 in English word frequency. Often confused with ambiance and allowance.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | alliance |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈlaɪ.əns/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #3,598 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for alliance is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈlaɪ.əns/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,598 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for alliance, with forms such as "aliance", "alilance", and "allaince". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "ambiance", "allowance", "appliance", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English alliaunce, from Old French aliance (French alliance). Equivalent to ally + -ance. Compare with Doric Greek ἁλία (halía, “assembly”). 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 alliance, spelled A-L-L-I-A-N-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The state of being allied.
- 2The act of allying or uniting.
- 3A union or connection of interests between families, states, parties, etc., especially between families by marriage and states by compact, treaty, or league.
- 4A union or connection of interests between families, states, parties, etc., especially between families by marriage and states by compact, treaty, or league.
- 5Any union resembling that of families or states; union by relationship in qualities; affinity.
- 6The persons or parties allied.
- 7Synonym of cohort (“group of orders of organisms”).
Etymology
From Middle English alliaunce, from Old French aliance (French alliance). Equivalent to ally + -ance. Compare with Doric Greek ἁλία (halía, “assembly”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aliance,alilance,allaince,alliacne,alliancce,allianec,alliannce,allience,allinace,laliance
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for alliance
Misspelling Variants of "alliance"
Frequency rank: #3,598 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: