animal
/ˈæn.ᵻ.məl/
"animal" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“animal” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,623 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,623
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any member of the kingdom Animalia of multicellular organisms that are usually mobile, whose cells are not encased in a rigid cell wall (distinguishing them from plants and fungi) and which derive ...
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 | animal |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæn.ᵻ.məl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,623 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “animal” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for animal is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈæn.ᵻ.məl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,623 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for animal, with forms such as "ainmal", "aniaml", and "animall". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "Anita", "axial", "annual", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁mos Proto-Italic *anamos Latin animus Latin anima Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin animālis Latin animalder. Old French animalbor. Middle English animal En… The correct English form is animal, spelled A-N-I-M-A-L.
Definition
- 1Any member of the kingdom Animalia of multicellular organisms that are usually mobile, whose cells are not encased in a rigid cell wall (distinguishing them from plants and fungi) and which derive energy solely from the consumption of other organisms (further distinguishing them from plants).
- 2Any member of the kingdom Animalia other than a human.
- 3A higher animal; an animal related to humans.
- 4A higher animal; an animal related to humans.
- 5A higher animal; an animal related to humans.
- 6A higher animal; an animal related to humans.
- 7A person who behaves wildly; a bestial, brutal, brutish, cruel, or inhuman person.
- 8A person of a particular type specified by an adjective.
- 9Matter, thing.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁mos Proto-Italic *anamos Latin animus Latin anima Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin animālis Latin animalder. Old French animalbor. Middle English animal English animal From Middle English animal, from Old French animal, from Latin animal, a nominal use of the adjective form animāle, neuter of animālis, from anima (“breath, spirit”). Displaced native Middle English deor, der (“animal”) (whence modern English deer; from Old English dēor (“animal”)), Middle English reother (“animal, neat”) (whence modern English rother; from Old English hrīþer, hrȳþer (“neat, ox”)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ainmal,aniaml,animall,animla,animmal,anmial,annimal,naimal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of animal - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “animal”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-N-I-M-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈæn.ᵻ.məl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Anita” - see the side-by-side comparison. animal vs Anita
- 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.