carol
/ˈkæɹəl/
"carol" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“carol” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,879 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,879
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A round dance accompanied by singing.
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 | carol |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkæɹəl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,879 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “carol” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for carol is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkæɹəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,879 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 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 carol, with forms such as "acrol", "caorl", and "caroll". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "col", "CRO", "cool", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: The noun is derived from Middle English carole (“round dance with singing; group of people dancing and singing in a circle; song by carollers, carol; religious poem or song; circular thing; braid, chain (?); stall for study or writing; writing table”), from… The correct English form is carol, spelled C-A-R-O-L.
Definition
- 1A round dance accompanied by singing.
- 2A ballad or song of joy.
- 3A ballad or song of joy.
- 4A small closet or enclosure built against the inner side of a window of a monastery's cloister, to sit in for study.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English carole (“round dance with singing; group of people dancing and singing in a circle; song by carollers, carol; religious poem or song; circular thing; braid, chain (?); stall for study or writing; writing table”), from Old French carole (“round dance with singing”). The further etymology is uncertain; the following possibilities have been suggested: * From Old Italian carola, or directly from its etymon Medieval Latin choraula, a variant of choraulēs (“flute player accompanying a chorus dance”), from Ancient Greek χοραυλής (khoraulḗs, “one who accompanies a chorus on the flute”), from χορός (khorós, “choir; dance”) + αὐλός (aulós, “flute”). * From Latin corōlla (“little crown, coronet; small chaplet, garland, or wreath”), from corōna (“chaplet, garland, wreath”) + -la (diminutive suffix). Corōna is borrowed from Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē, “type of crown; curved object (door handle, tip of a bow, stern of a ship, etc.)”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Compare chorus, terpsichorean. Noun noun sense 3 (“small closet or enclosure”) may refer to the fact that the item encloses or surrounds the person using it. The verb is derived from Middle English carolen (“to dance and/or sing in a round dance; to sing for (dancers in a round dance); (figurative) to spend time noisily or unprofitably”), from Old French caroler (“to sing”), from carole (noun) (see above) + -er (a variant of -ier (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acrol,caorl,caroll,carrol,ccarol,craol
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of carol - 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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Using “carol”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-R-O-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkæɹəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “col” - see the side-by-side comparison. carol vs col
- 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.