almost
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "almost", 6-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 "almost" 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 "almost" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
almost is anEnglishadv. It means: Very close to, but not quite. Pronounced /ˈɔːl.məʊst/. It ranks #395 in English word frequency. Often confused with alot and Amos.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | almost |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adv |
| IPA | /ˈɔːl.məʊst/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #395 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for almost is 6 letters long, classified as anadv, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɔːl.məʊst/. Corpus data places it at rank #395 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for almost, with forms such as "allmost", "almmost", and "almosst". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "alot", "Amos", "alms", 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 *h₂el-der.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂elnós Proto-Germanic *allaz Proto-Germanic *ala- Proto-West Germanic *ala- Old English æl- Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-der. Proto-Germanic *maiz Proto-Germanic *maistaz Proto-Germanic *mais… 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 almost, spelled A-L-M-O-S-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Very close to, but not quite.
- 2Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).
- 3Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-der.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂elnós Proto-Germanic *allaz Proto-Germanic *ala- Proto-West Germanic *ala- Old English æl- Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-der. Proto-Germanic *maiz Proto-Germanic *maistaz Proto-Germanic *maist Proto-West Germanic *maist Old English mǣst Old English eallmǣst Middle English almost English almost From Middle English almost, from Old English eallmǣst (“nearly all, almost, for the most part”), equivalent to al- (“all”) + most.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: allmost,almmost,almosst,almostt,almots,almsot,alomst,amlost,lamost
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for almost
Misspelling Variants of "almost"
Frequency rank: #395 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: