goal
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "goal", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "goal" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "goal" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
goal is aEnglishnoun. It means: A result that one is attempting to achieve. Pronounced /ɡəʊl/. It ranks #925 in English word frequency. Often confused with got and god.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | goal |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡəʊl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #925 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for goal is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡəʊl/. Corpus data places it at rank #925 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for goal, with forms such as "ggoal", "goall", and "gola". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "got", "god", "GOP", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gol (“boundary, limit”), from Old English *gāl (“obstacle, barrier, marker”), from Proto-West Germanic *gailu, from Proto-Germanic *gailō (“crevice, gap”); compare the Old English's derivatives Old English gǣlan (“to hinder, delay”), and… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is goal, spelled G-O-A-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A result that one is attempting to achieve.
- 2In many sports, an area into which the players attempt to put an object.
- 3The act of placing the object into the goal.
- 4A point scored in a game as a result of placing the object into the goal.
- 5A noun or noun phrase that receives the action of a verb. The subject of a passive verb or the direct object of an active verb. Also called a patient, target, or undergoer.
Etymology
From Middle English gol (“boundary, limit”), from Old English *gāl (“obstacle, barrier, marker”), from Proto-West Germanic *gailu, from Proto-Germanic *gailō (“crevice, gap”); compare the Old English's derivatives Old English gǣlan (“to hinder, delay”), and hyġegǣls (“hesitating, slow, sluggish”), hyġegǣlsa (“slow one, sluggish one”). Possibly cognate with Lithuanian gãlas (“end”), Latvian gals (“end”), Old Prussian gallan (“death”), Albanian ngalem (“to be limping, lame, paralyzed”), ngel (“to remain, linger, hesitate, get stuck”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ggoal,goall,gola,ogal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for goal
Misspelling Variants of "goal"
Frequency rank: #925 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: