ill will
"ill-will" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“ill will” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A spiteful or vengeful attitude; a grudge; dislike.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ill-will · ill will · English
ill will · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ill will |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “ill will” in English
Rare enough to double-check
ill will is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A spiteful or vengeful attitude; a grudge; dislike.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ill will, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ill will, il wille, ill wille, equivalent to ill + will. The correct English form is ill will, spelled I-L-L- -W-I-L-L.
Definition
- 1A spiteful or vengeful attitude; a grudge; dislike.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how ill will appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The losing side bore no ill will toward the winners.
Etymology
From Middle English ill will, il wille, ill wille, equivalent to ill + will.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.