Calais
/ˈkæleɪ/
"calais" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Calais” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #19,278. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #19,278
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 18
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A city in Pas-de-Calais department, Hauts-de-France, France.
Corpus desk
Index EN-calais · Calais · English
Calais · rank #19,278 · 8 variants · 18 confusables
- FREQ-MID #19,278
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 18 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH Caitlin
Nearest frequency peer: Caitlin (-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 “Calais”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- bolster
bolster
80,727 corpus weight
- bray
bray
80,726 corpus weight
- briefs
briefs
80,725 corpus weight
- Caitlin
Caitlin
80,724 corpus weight
- Calais
Calais
80,723 corpus weight
- canning
canning
80,721 corpus weight
What this shows “Calais” 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 | Calais |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæleɪ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #19,278 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 18 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “Calais”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around Calais (IPA /ˈkæleɪ/), aproper noun. Corpus frequency is #19,278 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for Calais, with forms such as "aclais", "caalis", and "calaiss". 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 18 confusable-pair relationships, "Cali", "class", "claim", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French Calais and Middle English Caleys (from Anglo-Norman Caleis), from the Roman name, Latin Caletum, named after the Caleti, a Gaulish tribe in the area, from Proto-Celtic *kaletos, from Proto-Indo-European *kal- (“hard”). The placename is cognate w… The correct English form is Calais, spelled C-A-L-A-I-S.
Definition
- 1A city in Pas-de-Calais department, Hauts-de-France, France.
- 2A city in Maine.
Etymology
From French Calais and Middle English Caleys (from Anglo-Norman Caleis), from the Roman name, Latin Caletum, named after the Caleti, a Gaulish tribe in the area, from Proto-Celtic *kaletos, from Proto-Indo-European *kal- (“hard”). The placename is cognate with Breton calet, Middle Irish calath, and calad.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- aclais
- caalis
- calaiss
- calasi
- calias
- callais
- ccalais
- claais
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Calais - 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 "Calais", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).