apple
/ˈæp.əl/
"apple" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“apple” has 5 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #1,781. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,781
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 19
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
Corpus desk
Index EN-apple · apple · English
apple · rank #1,781 · 5 variants · 19 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,781
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 19 pairs
- VAR-MID 5 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH alive
Nearest frequency peer: alive (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “apple”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- units
units
98,223 corpus weight
- AD
AD
98,222 corpus weight
- alive
alive
98,221 corpus weight
- apple
apple
98,220 corpus weight
- balance
balance
98,219 corpus weight
- birthday
birthday
98,218 corpus weight
What this shows “apple” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | apple |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈæp.əl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,781 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “apple”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 5 spelling variants around apple (IPA /ˈæp.əl/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #1,781 among 3,931 “A” headwords. Wiktionary lists 19 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for apple, with forms such as "aple", "aplpe", and "appel". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 19 confusable-pair relationships, "axle", "appt", "apply", 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 *h₂ébōl Proto-Germanic *aplaz Proto-West Germanic *applu Old English æppel Middle English appel English apple The noun is derived from Middle English appel (“Malus domestica fruit or tree, apple; any type of fruit, nut, or… The correct English form is apple, spelled A-P-P-L-E.
Definition
- 1A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 2A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 3A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 4A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 5A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 6A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 7A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 8A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 9A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 10A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 11A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 12A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 13A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.
- 14A tree of the genus Malus; especially Malus domestica which is cultivated for its edible fruit; the apple tree.
- 15Synonym of applewood (“the wood of the apple tree”).
- 16A person.
- 17Synonym of CBer (“a CB radio enthusiast”).
- 18An assist.
- 19A Native American or redskinned person who acts or thinks like a white (Caucasian) person.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how apple appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
All apples eaten ſoone after yͭ they be gathered, are cold, hard to digeſt, and do make ill and corrupted bloud, but being wel kept vntill yͤ next winter, or the year folowing, eatẽ [eaten] after meales, they are right holeſome, & doe confyrme the ſtomacke, & make good digeſtion, ſpecially if they be roſted or baked, […]
[T]hey [i.e., writers] aſſigne and lay to India, the countrey of the Aſpagores, ſo plentifull in vines, laurels, and box, and generally of all ſorts of apple trees and other fruitfull trees that grovv vvithin Greece.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ébōl Proto-Germanic *aplaz Proto-West Germanic *applu Old English æppel Middle English appel English apple The noun is derived from Middle English appel (“Malus domestica fruit or tree, apple; any type of fruit, nut, or tuber; tree bearing fruit; (figurative) ball, sphere; (Christianity) forbidden fruit in Eden”), from Old English æppel (“apple; any type of fruit; (figurative) ball, sphere; eyeball”), from Proto-West Germanic *applu (“apple; any type of fruit”), from Proto-Germanic *aplaz (“apple; any type of fruit”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ébōl, *h₂ébl̥ (“apple”). As regards noun sense 1.4 (“forbidden fruit”), the type of fruit eaten by Adam and Eve is not identified in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. It may have come to be identified with the apple because of the similarity between Latin mālum (“apple”) and malum (“evil; misery, torment; wrongdoing”). The verb is derived from the noun. Cognates Cognate with Scots aipple (“apple”), North Frisian aapel, Oapel, ååpel (“apple”), Saterland Frisian Apel, Appel (“apple”), West Frisian apel, appel (“apple”), Alemannic German effél, epfel, epfil, öpfil (“apple”), Bavarian eipfele, epfl, Åpfe (“apple”), Cimbrian oupfal, öpfel, öpfl (“apple”), Dutch appel (“apple”), German Apfel (“apple”), German Low German Appel (“apple”), Limburgish Ape̩l, appel (“apple”), Luxembourgish Apel (“apple”), Mòcheno epfl (“apple”), Vilamovian epuł (“apple”), Yiddish עפּל (epl, “apple”), Danish æble (“apple”), Faroese epl, epli (“apple; potato”), Icelandic epli (“apple”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk eple (“apple”), Swedish äpple (“apple”), Crimean Gothic apel (“apple”), Irish úll (“apple”), Lithuanian óbuolỹs (“apple”), Russian я́блоко (jábloko, “apple”), Welsh afal (“apple”), possibly Ancient Greek ἄμπελος (ámpelos, “vine”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- aple
- aplpe
- appel
- applle
- paple
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of apple - 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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "apple", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (5 here; floor ≥5).