elm
/ɛlm/
"elm" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“elm” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #18,066 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #18,066
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A tree of the genus Ulmus of the family Ulmaceae, large deciduous trees with alternate stipulate leaves and small apetalous flowers.
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 | elm |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɛlm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #18,066 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “elm” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for elm is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɛlm/. Corpus data places it at rank #18,066 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for elm in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ex", "et", "EU", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English elme, elm, from Old English elm, from Proto-West Germanic *elm, from Proto-Germanic *elmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem (“mountain elm”). See also dialectal Low German Elm, dialectal German Ilm, archaic German Ilme, Norwegian and Sw… The correct English form is elm, spelled E-L-M.
Definition
- 1A tree of the genus Ulmus of the family Ulmaceae, large deciduous trees with alternate stipulate leaves and small apetalous flowers.
- 2Wood from an elm tree.
Etymology
From Middle English elme, elm, from Old English elm, from Proto-West Germanic *elm, from Proto-Germanic *elmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem (“mountain elm”). See also dialectal Low German Elm, dialectal German Ilm, archaic German Ilme, Norwegian and Swedish alm; also Irish leamh, Latin ulmus, Albanian ulzë (“maple”).
This word in other languages
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 “elm”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-L-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɛlm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ex” - see the side-by-side comparison. elm vs ex
- 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.