alms
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "alms", 4-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 "alms" 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 "alms" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
alms is aEnglishnoun. It means: Something given to the poor as charity, such as money, clothing or food. Pronounced /ɑːmz/. Often confused with as and AM.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | alms |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɑːmz/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #33,114 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for alms is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɑːmz/. Corpus data places it at rank #33,114 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Something given to the poor as charity, such as money, clothing or food.".
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for alms, with forms such as "allms", "almms", and "almss". 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, "as", "AM", "ass", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Ancient Greek ἔλεος (éleos) Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *-eyéti Proto-Indo-European *-esyéti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁yeti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European… 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 alms, spelled A-L-M-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Something given to the poor as charity, such as money, clothing or food.
Etymology
Etymology tree Ancient Greek ἔλεος (éleos) Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *-eyéti Proto-Indo-European *-esyéti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁ti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éh₁yeti Proto-Indo-European *-yeti Proto-Indo-European *-éyeti Ancient Greek -έω (-éō) Ancient Greek ἐλεέω (eleéō) Proto-Indo-European *-mṓ Ancient Greek -μων (-mōn) Ancient Greek ἐλεήμων (eleḗmōn) Ancient Greek -συνος (-sunos) Ancient Greek -σῠ́νη (-sŭ́nē) Ancient Greek ἐλεημοσύνη (eleēmosúnē)bor. Late Latin eleēmosyna Vulgar Latin *alēmosynabor. Proto-West Germanic *alemōsinā Old English ælmesse Middle English almesse English alms From Middle English almes, almesse, ælmesse, from Old English ælmesse, from Proto-West Germanic *alemōsinā, a borrowing from Vulgar Latin *alemosyna, from Late Latin eleēmosyna, from Ancient Greek ἐλεημοσύνη (eleēmosúnē, “alms”), from ἐλεέω (eleéō, “I have mercy”), from ἔλεος (éleos, “mercy”). Compare Saterland Frisian Aalmoose (“alms”), Dutch aalmoes (“alms”), German Almosen (“alms”), Catalan almoina (“alms”), Portuguese esmola (“alms”), Galician esmola (“alms”), Spanish limosna (“alms”), French aumône (“alms”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: allms,almms,almss,alsm,amls,lams
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for alms
Misspelling Variants of "alms"
Frequency rank: #33,114 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: