hale
/heɪl/adjective, verb
hale is spelled H-A-L-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.0 times per million words in written English, the 12,940th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “hail vs hale” about 720 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, hale means “Sound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in hale?
| Letters | 4: H-A-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.0 times per million words; the 12,940th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is hale?
Hale appears 4.0 times per million words in written English, the 12,940th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hale?
- /heɪl/
Hale has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-hale.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with hale
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: hail (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with hale?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as hale.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: heal.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of hale
- haler comparative
- halest superlative
- hales present, singular, he/she/it
- haling participle, present
- haled participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hale mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
datedSound, entire, healthy; robust, not impaired.
verb
- 1
To drag or pull, especially forcibly.
adjective
- 1
Acronym of high-altitude long-endurance
noun
- 1
archaicHealth, welfare.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hale in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hale come from?
From Northern Middle English hal, hale, variants of hole (“healthy; safe; whole”, whence whole), from Old English hāl, from Proto-West Germanic *hail, from Proto-Germanic *hailaz (“whole; entire; healthy”). See whole for more.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).