angel
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "angel", 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 "angel" 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 "angel" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
angel is aEnglishnoun. It means: An incorporeal and holy or semidivine messenger from a deity or other divine entity, traditionally depicted as a youthful, winged figure in flowing robes. Pronounced /ˈeɪn.d͡ʒl̩/. It ranks #3,277 in English word frequency. Often confused with Anne and ante.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | angel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈeɪn.d͡ʒl̩/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,277 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for angel is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈeɪn.d͡ʒl̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,277 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 angel, with forms such as "agnel", "anegl", and "anggel". 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, "Anne", "ante", "axel", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Two Baroque angels from southern Germany, from the mid-18th century From Middle English aungel, angel, from Old English anġel, either a modification of enġel after its etymon Latin angelus (through the intermediate of Proto-West Germanic *angil) or a reborr… 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 angel, spelled A-N-G-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An incorporeal and holy or semidivine messenger from a deity or other divine entity, traditionally depicted as a youthful, winged figure in flowing robes.
- 2An incorporeal and holy or semidivine messenger from a deity or other divine entity, traditionally depicted as a youthful, winged figure in flowing robes.
- 3A person having qualities traditionally attributed to angels.
- 4A person having qualities traditionally attributed to angels.
- 5A person having qualities traditionally attributed to angels.
- 6Attendant spirit; genius; demon.
- 7An official (a bishop, or sometimes a minister) who heads a Christian church, especially a Catholic Apostolic Church.
- 8An English gold coin, bearing the figure of the archangel Michael, circulated between the 15th and 17th centuries, and varying in value from six shillings and eightpence to ten shillings.
- 9An altitude, measured in thousands of feet.
- 10An unidentified flying object detected by air traffic control radar.
- 11someone that funds
- 12someone that funds
Etymology
Two Baroque angels from southern Germany, from the mid-18th century From Middle English aungel, angel, from Old English anġel, either a modification of enġel after its etymon Latin angelus (through the intermediate of Proto-West Germanic *angil) or a reborrowing from the Latin, which is in turn from Ancient Greek ἄγγελος (ángelos, “messenger”); later reinforced by Anglo-Norman angele, angel, from the same Latin source. The religious sense of the Greek word first appeared in the Septuagint as a translation of the Hebrew word מַלְאָךְ (malʾāḵ, “messenger”) or מַלְאָךְ יהוה (malʾāḵ YHWH, “messenger of YHWH”). Doublet of Angelus. Use of the term in some churches to refer to a church official derives from interpreting the "angels" of the Seven churches of Asia in Revelation as being bishops or ministers rather than angelic beings.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: agnel,anegl,anggel,anngel,nagel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for angel
Misspelling Variants of "angel"
Frequency rank: #3,277 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: