hilarious
/hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/
"hilarious" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hilarious” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #4,531 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #4,531
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Very funny; causing great merriment and laughter.
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 | hilarious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #4,531 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hilarious” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hilarious is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,531 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 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for hilarious, with forms such as "hhilarious", "hialrious", and "hilairous". 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 1 confusable-pair relationship, "hilariously", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Latin hilaris (“cheerful”) + -ous, from Ancient Greek ἱλαρός (hilarós, “cheerful, merry”). The correct English form is hilarious, spelled H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Very funny; causing great merriment and laughter.
- 2Full of hilarity; merry.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin hilaris (“cheerful”) + -ous, from Ancient Greek ἱλαρός (hilarós, “cheerful, merry”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhilarious,hialrious,hilairous,hilariosu,hilariouss,hilariuos,hilaroius,hilarrious,hillarious,hilraious,hliarious,ihlarious
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hilarious - 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 “hilarious”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hilariously” - see the side-by-side comparison. hilarious vs hilariously
- 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.