israel
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "israel", 6-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 "israel" 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 "israel" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
Israel is aEnglishname. It means: A country in Western Asia in the Middle East, at the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Official name: State of Israel. Pronounced /ˈɪz.ɹeɪ.əl/. It ranks #1,761 in English word frequency. Often confused with Israeli and Israelis.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Israel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Name |
| IPA | /ˈɪz.ɹeɪ.əl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,761 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Israel is 6 letters long, classified as aname, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɪz.ɹeɪ.əl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,761 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for Israel, with forms such as "irsael", "isarel", and "israell". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "Israeli", "Israelis", "Isabel", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English Israel, from Old English, borrowed from Latin Israel, from Ancient Greek Ἰσραήλ (Israḗl), from Hebrew יִשְׂרָאֵל (yisra'él, “Israel”). In the Bible, it is said to be from the name יִשְׂרֶה אֵל (yisré 'él) given to Jacob in he:T:29, after… 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 Israel, spelled I-S-R-A-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A country in Western Asia in the Middle East, at the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Official name: State of Israel.
- 2A Biblical region of Western Asia roughly coextensive with the modern State of Israel, known in the Bible as the Land of Israel and considered the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.
- 3An ancient kingdom in Western Asia, roughly coextensive with the modern State of Israel and the Land of Israel.
- 4An ancient kingdom that occupied the northern part of the Land of Israel and modern State of Israel, as distinct from Judah.
- 5The Jews as a people, taken collectively.
- 6A male given name from Hebrew.
- 7A male given name from Hebrew.
- 8A surname.
- 9A barangay of Imelda, Zamboanga Sibugay, Philippines.
Etymology
From Middle English Israel, from Old English, borrowed from Latin Israel, from Ancient Greek Ἰσραήλ (Israḗl), from Hebrew יִשְׂרָאֵל (yisra'él, “Israel”). In the Bible, it is said to be from the name יִשְׂרֶה אֵל (yisré 'él) given to Jacob in he:T:29, after which his descendants came to be known as Israelites and their land as the "kingdom/land of Israel". The personal name, already attested in Eblaite 𒅖𒊏𒅋 (iš-ra-il) and Ugaritic 𐎊𐎌𐎗𐎛𐎍 (yšrỉl), has been variously translated as "he wrestles with God", "he prevails with God", or "God rules" (possibly from the same root ש־ר־ה/ש־ר־ר as שָׂרָה (“Sarah”)). Line 27 of the Merneptah Stele (from about 1200 B.C.E.) is thought to contain the earliest attestation of the name Israel in any language, Egyptian ysrjꜣr. : i-i-z:Z1s*Z1s:r-i-A-r:Z1*T14-A1*B1:Z2 Doublet of Yisroel.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: irsael,isarel,israell,israle,isreal,isrrael,issrael,sirael
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for Israel
Misspelling Variants of "Israel"
Frequency rank: #1,761 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter I in our English index: