alveolar
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 "alveolar", 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 "alveolar" 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 "alveolar" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
alveolar is anEnglishadj. It means: Relating to the alveoli (small air sacs) of the lungs. Pronounced /alˈviː.əl.ə/.
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See how alveolar compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | alveolar |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /alˈviː.əl.ə/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #36,857 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for alveolar is 8 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /alˈviː.əl.ə/. Corpus data places it at rank #36,857 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for alveolar, with forms such as "alevolar", "allveolar", and "alveloar". 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 is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From alveolus + -ar. 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 alveolar, spelled A-L-V-E-O-L-A-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Relating to the alveoli (small air sacs) of the lungs.
- 2Relating to the jaw ridge containing the tooth sockets.
- 3Formed with the tongue touching or approaching the inner ridge of the gums of the upper front teeth.
- 4Relating to the glands with secretory cells about a central space.
Etymology
From alveolus + -ar.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alevolar,allveolar,alveloar,alveoalr,alveolarr,alveollar,alveolra,alvoelar,alvveolar,avleolar,laveolar
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for alveolar
Misspelling Variants of "alveolar"
Frequency rank: #36,857 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: