allow
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "allow", 5-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 "allow" 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 "allow" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
allow is aEnglishverb. It means: To let one have as a suitable share of something. Pronounced /əˈlaʊ/. It ranks #1,039 in English word frequency. Often confused with also and ally.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | allow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /əˈlaʊ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,039 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for allow is 5 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈlaʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,039 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for allow, with forms such as "alloww", "allwo", and "alolw". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "also", "ally", "alot", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Latin laus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin laudō Latin allaudō… 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 allow, spelled A-L-L-O-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To let one have as a suitable share of something.
- 2To permit, to give permission to.
- 3To not bar or obstruct.
- 4To acknowledge, accept the truth of; to concede; to accede to an opinion; to say something one agrees on in the context of a larger disagreement or reluctance.
- 5To grant (something) as a deduction or an addition; especially to abate or deduct.
- 6To make an allowance, to take into account when making plans.
- 7To render physically possible.
- 8To praise; to approve of; hence, to sanction.
- 9To sanction; to invest; to entrust.
- 10To like; to be suited or pleased with.
- 11To decide (a request) in favour of the party who raised it; to grant victory to a party regarding (a request).
- 12To forgo bothering with, to let slide.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Latin laus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin laudō Latin allaudō Old French aloer ▲ Latin ad- Latin locus ▲ Latin -ō Latin locō Latin allocō Old French aloer Anglo-Norman alouerbor. Middle English allowen English allow From Middle English allowen, alowen, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman allouer, alouer, from Medieval Latin allaudāre, merged with alouer, from Medieval Latin allocō (“to assign”). Doublet of allaud (via allaudāre) or allocate (via allocāre). The similarity with Middle English alyfen (from Old English ālīefan) and German erlauben, both from Proto-Germanic *uzlaubijaną (“to allow”) is unrelated.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alloww,allwo,alolw,alow,lalow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for allow
Misspelling Variants of "allow"
Frequency rank: #1,039 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: