anger
/ˈæ̞ŋɡə/
"anger" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“anger” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,466 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,466
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm living beings, often stemming from perceive...
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 | anger |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæ̞ŋɡə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #3,466 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “anger” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for anger is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæ̞ŋɡə/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,466 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for anger, with forms such as "agner", "anegr", and "angerr". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Anne", "ante", "Ayer", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English anger (“grief, pain, trouble, affliction, vexation, sorrow, wrath”), from Old Norse angr, ǫngr (“affliction, sorrow”) (compare Old Norse ang, ǫng (“troubled”)), from Proto-Germanic *angazaz (“grief, sorrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂… The correct English form is anger, spelled A-N-G-E-R.
Definition
- 1A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm living beings, often stemming from perceived provocation, hurt, threat, insults, unfair or unjust treatment, or an undesired situation.
- 2Pain or stinging.
Etymology
From Middle English anger (“grief, pain, trouble, affliction, vexation, sorrow, wrath”), from Old Norse angr, ǫngr (“affliction, sorrow”) (compare Old Norse ang, ǫng (“troubled”)), from Proto-Germanic *angazaz (“grief, sorrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- (“narrow, tied together”). Cognate with Danish anger (“regret, remorse”), Norwegian Bokmål anger (“regret, remorse”), Swedish ånger (“regret”), Icelandic angur (“trouble”), Old English ange, enge (“narrow, close, straitened, constrained, confined, vexed, troubled, sorrowful, anxious, oppressive, severe, painful, cruel”), German Angst (“anxiety, anguish, fear”), Latin angō (“squeeze, choke, vex”), angor (“strangulation; anguish, torment”) (whence the English doublet angor), Albanian ang (“fear, anxiety, pain, nightmare”), Avestan 𐬄𐬰𐬀𐬵 (ązah, “strangulation; distress”), Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō, “I squeeze, strangle”), Sanskrit अंहस् (aṃhas), अंहु (aṃhu, “anxiety, distress, affliction”, literally “narrowness”). Also compare with English anguish, anxious, quinsy, and perhaps to awe and ugly. The word seems to have originally meant “to choke, squeeze”. The verb is from Middle English angren, angeren, from Old Norse angra. Compare with Icelandic angra, Norwegian Nynorsk angra, Norwegian Bokmål angre, Swedish ångra, Danish angre.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: agner,anegr,angerr,angger,angre,annger,nager
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of anger - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “anger”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-N-G-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈæ̞ŋɡə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Anne” - see the side-by-side comparison. anger vs Anne
- 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.