army
/ˈɑː.mi/
"army" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“army” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #921 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #921
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large, highly organized military force, concerned mainly with ground (rather than air or naval) operations.
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 | army |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɑː.mi/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #921 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “army” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for army is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɑː.mi/. Corpus data places it at rank #921 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for army, with forms such as "amry", "armmy", and "armyy". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ay", "art", "ATM", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂er-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)rmosder. Latin arma Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin armō ▲ Proto-Indo-Europe… The correct English form is army, spelled A-R-M-Y.
Definition
- 1A large, highly organized military force, concerned mainly with ground (rather than air or naval) operations.
- 2A large, highly organized military force, concerned mainly with ground (rather than air or naval) operations.
- 3A large, highly organized military force, concerned mainly with ground (rather than air or naval) operations.
- 4The governmental agency in charge of a state's army.
- 5A large group of people working toward the same purpose.
- 6A large group of social animals working toward the same purpose.
- 7Any multitude.
- 8The military as a whole.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂er-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)rmosder. Latin arma Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin armō ▲ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Latin armātus Anglo-Norman armeebor. Middle English armee English army From (1386) Middle English armee, borrowed from Old French armee (cf. modern French armée), from Medieval Latin armāta (“armed force”), a noun taken from the past participle of Latin armāre (“to arm”), itself related to arma (“tools, arms”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to join, fit together”). Doublet of armada. Displaced native Old English here and fierd.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amry,armmy,armyy,arrmy,arym,ramy
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of army - 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
How do you spell "army"?
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Using “army”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-R-M-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɑː.mi/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ay” - see the side-by-side comparison. army vs ay
- 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.