irrealis
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "irrealis", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "irrealis" 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 "irrealis" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“irrealis” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adjective — the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
Dominant Wiktionary sense: Inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact.
Compare similar words
See how irrealis compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | irrealis |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɪɹiˈɑːlɪs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “irrealis” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for irrealis is 8 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪɹiˈɑːlɪs/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact.".
No misspelling variants are generated for irrealis in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from New Latin irreālis (“intangible, immaterial”), from Latin in- (“un-: not”) + reālis (“real, material, composed of physical things”), from res (“thing”) + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”). Doublet of irreal. 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 irrealis, spelled I-R-R-E-A-L-I-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Inflected to indicate that an act or state of being is not a fact.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from New Latin irreālis (“intangible, immaterial”), from Latin in- (“un-: not”) + reālis (“real, material, composed of physical things”), from res (“thing”) + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”). Doublet of irreal.
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Using “irrealis”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is I-R-R-E-A-L-I-S — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɪɹiˈɑːlɪs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: