appeal
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "appeal", 6-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 "appeal" 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 "appeal" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
appeal is aEnglishnoun. It means: An application to a superior court or judge for a decision or order by an inferior court or judge to be reviewed and overturned. Pronounced /əˈpiːl/. It ranks #2,143 in English word frequency. Often confused with appear and append.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | appeal |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈpiːl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #2,143 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for appeal is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈpiːl/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,143 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 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for appeal, with forms such as "apeal", "apepal", and "appael". 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 8 confusable-pair relationships, "appear", "append", "appears", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English apel, appel (“formal accusation brought in court; a challenge to trial by combat; an appeal to a higher court or authority; plea (for mercy, protection, etc.); pealing (of bells)”) [and other forms], from Old French apel (“a call”) (mode… 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 appeal, spelled A-P-P-E-A-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An application to a superior court or judge for a decision or order by an inferior court or judge to be reviewed and overturned.
- 2The legal document or form by which such an application is made; also, the court case in which the application is argued.
- 3A person's legal right to apply to court for such a review.
- 4An accusation or charge against someone for wrongdoing (especially treason).
- 5A process which formerly might be instituted by one private person against another for some heinous crime demanding punishment for the particular injury suffered, rather than for the offence against the public; an accusation.
- 6At common law, an accusation made against a felon by one of their accomplices (called an approver).
- 7A call to a person or an authority for a decision, help, or proof; an entreaty, an invocation.
- 8A call to a person or an authority for a decision, help, or proof; an entreaty, an invocation.
- 9A resort to some physical means; a recourse.
- 10A power to attract or interest.
- 11a use of a principle or quality for purposes of persuasion.
- 12A summons to defend one's honour in a duel, or one's innocence in a trial by combat; a challenge.
Etymology
From Middle English apel, appel (“formal accusation brought in court; a challenge to trial by combat; an appeal to a higher court or authority; plea (for mercy, protection, etc.); pealing (of bells)”) [and other forms], from Old French apel (“a call”) (modern French appel (“a call; an appeal”)), from apeler (“to call; to call out”), from Latin appellāre (“to address as, call by name; to drive, move to; to land or put ashore”), alternative form adpellāre, from ad- (prefix meaning ‘to; towards’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd (“at; to”)) + pellere (“to drive, impel, push; to hurl, propel; to banish, expel; to eject, thrust out”) + -āre, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₂- (“to approach”), from *pel- (“to beat; to drive; to push”). Doublet of appel.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apeal,apepal,appael,appeall,appela,papeal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for appeal
Misspelling Variants of "appeal"
Frequency rank: #2,143 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: