gala
/ˈɡɑːlə/
"gala" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gala” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,701 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #11,701
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Celebratory; festive.
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 | gala |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɡɑːlə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #11,701 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gala” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gala is 4 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡɑːlə/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,701 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Celebratory; festive.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for gala, with forms such as "agla", "gaal", and "galla". 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, "GL", "gas", "Gay", 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 gala, or directly from that word's etymon, which is either Italian gala, or Spanish gala, both meaning "festive occasion", and derived from Old French gale (“rejoicing”). (The French word likely kept the final -a to avoid homophony with gale (“s… The correct English form is gala, spelled G-A-L-A.
Definition
- 1Celebratory; festive.
Etymology
From French gala, or directly from that word's etymon, which is either Italian gala, or Spanish gala, both meaning "festive occasion", and derived from Old French gale (“rejoicing”). (The French word likely kept the final -a to avoid homophony with gale (“scabies”).) Ultimately cognate to gallant and hence probably from Frankish *wala (“good, well”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: agla,gaal,galla,ggala,glaa
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of gala - 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
How do you spell "gala"?
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Using “gala”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-A-L-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɡɑːlə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “GL” - see the side-by-side comparison. gala vs GL
- 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.