dale
/deu/
"dale" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dale” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,331 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,331
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A valley, often in an otherwise hilly area.
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 | dale |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /deu/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #7,331 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dale” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dale is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /deu/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,331 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for dale, with forms such as "adle", "dalle", and "ddale". 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, "de", "DL", "day", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English dale, from Old English dæl, from Proto-West Germanic *dal, from Proto-Germanic *dalą. The correct English form is dale, spelled D-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1A valley, often in an otherwise hilly area.
- 2The sunken or grooved portion of the surface of a vinyl record.
Etymology
From Middle English dale, from Old English dæl, from Proto-West Germanic *dal, from Proto-Germanic *dalą.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: adle,dalle,ddale,dlae
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dale - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “dale”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-A-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /deu/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “de” - see the side-by-side comparison. dale vs de
- 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.