als
"als" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“als” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #17,755 in English word frequency and used as an adverb.
- #17,755
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Obsolete form of also.
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 | als |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #17,755 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “als” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for als is 3 letters long, classified as an adverb. Corpus data places it at rank #17,755 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Obsolete form of also.".
als doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "as", "at", "an", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English als, variant of alse, alsa, also, from Old English eallswā, from Proto-West Germanic *allswā. More at also. The correct English form is als, spelled A-L-S.
Definition
- 1Obsolete form of also.
Etymology
From Middle English als, variant of alse, alsa, also, from Old English eallswā, from Proto-West Germanic *allswā. More at also.
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
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Using “als”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-L-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “as” - see the side-by-side comparison. als vs as
- 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.