jolly
/ˈd͡ʒɒli/
"jolly" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“jolly” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,549 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #13,549
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Full of merriment and high spirits; jovial; joyous; merry.
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 | jolly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈd͡ʒɒli/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #13,549 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “jolly” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for jolly is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈd͡ʒɒli/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,549 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for jolly, with forms such as "jjolly", "jloly", and "jollyy". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "joy", "July", "jolt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English joli, jolif (“merry, cheerful”), from Old French joli, jolif (“merry, joyful”). For the loss of final -f in English, compare tardy, hasty, hussy, etc. It is uncertain whether the Old French word is from Old Norse jól ("a midwinter feast,… The correct English form is jolly, spelled J-O-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Full of merriment and high spirits; jovial; joyous; merry.
- 2Splendid, excellent, pleasant.
- 3Drunk.
Etymology
From Middle English joli, jolif (“merry, cheerful”), from Old French joli, jolif (“merry, joyful”). For the loss of final -f in English, compare tardy, hasty, hussy, etc. It is uncertain whether the Old French word is from Old Norse jól ("a midwinter feast, Yule", hence "fest-ive"), in which case, equivalent to yule + -ive, compare Dutch jolig (“happy, festive, frolicsome, jolly”), West Frisian joelich, joalich (“merry, jolly”), Middle High German jœlich (“hooting, jubilant”). Alternatively, the Old French adjective has been conjectured to derive from a Vulgar Latin *gaudivus (from Latin gaudeō, more at joy), in which case it would require Early Old French ⟨d⟩ /ð/ to irregularly become ⟨l⟩ in jolif rather than being dropped, which is the usual case (alternatively, /l/ may be a hiatus filler inserted into expected *joïf). A possible parallel of ⟨d⟩ to ⟨l⟩ can be seen in the French name Valois, according to one hypothesis from Latin Vadensis, though this origin is itself uncertain and disputed.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: jjolly,jloly,jollyy,joly,jolyl,ojlly
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of jolly - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “jolly”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is J-O-L-L-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈd͡ʒɒli/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “joy” - see the side-by-side comparison. jolly vs joy
- 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.