aye
/eɪ/
"aye" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“aye” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,388) as an adverb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #8,388
- frequency rank, English
- 3,931
- “A” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ever, always.
Corpus desk
Index EN-aye · aye · English
aye · rank #8,388 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #8,388
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,931
- PHOTO-FINISH awhile
Nearest frequency peer: awhile (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “aye”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Allah
Allah
91,617 corpus weight
- alumni
alumni
91,616 corpus weight
- ana
ana
91,615 corpus weight
- awhile
awhile
91,614 corpus weight
- aye
aye
91,613 corpus weight
- bastard
bastard
91,612 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “aye” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | aye |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /eɪ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #8,388 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “aye” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for aye is neighbouring look-alikes ("AZ", "ayr", …), not just typos; it is anadverb pronounced /eɪ/. Frequency #8,388 among 3,931 “A” headwords. Gloss: "Ever, always.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for aye in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "AZ", "ayr", "Ayn", 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 *h₂ey- Proto-Indo-European *h₂óyu Proto-Germanic *aiwazder. Old Norse eyder. Middle English ay English aye From Middle English ay, ai, aȝȝ, from Old Norse ei, ey, from Proto-Germanic *aiwa, *aiwō (“ever, always”), from *ai… The correct English form is aye, spelled A-Y-E.
Definition
- 1Ever, always.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how aye appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…]Do that good miſcheefe, which may make this Iſland / Thine owne for euer, and I thy Caliban, / For aye thy foot-licker.
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, / And southward aye we fled.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ey- Proto-Indo-European *h₂óyu Proto-Germanic *aiwazder. Old Norse eyder. Middle English ay English aye From Middle English ay, ai, aȝȝ, from Old Norse ei, ey, from Proto-Germanic *aiwa, *aiwō (“ever, always”), from *aiwaz (“age; law”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyu- (“long time”). Doublet of aeviternity and aevum. See also Old English āwo, āwa, ā, ō, Middle Dutch ie, German je; also Old English ǣ(w) (“law”), West Frisian ieu (“century”), Dutch eeuw (“century”); also Irish aois (“age, period”), Breton oad (“age, period”), Latin ævum (“eternity”), Ancient Greek αἰών (aiṓn).
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 "aye", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "aye". Here's where to go from here.
- "aye" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "AZ". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #8,388 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "A" letter cohort. A–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.