late
/leɪt/
"late" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“late” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #456 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #456
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Near the end of a period of time.
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 | late |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /leɪt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #456 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “late” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for late is 4 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /leɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #456 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for late, with forms such as "alte", "laet", and "llate". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "le", "Lt", "lot", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English late, lat, from Old English læt (“slow; slack, lax, negligent; late”), from Proto-West Germanic *lat, from Proto-Germanic *lataz (“slow, lazy”). By surface analysis, deverbal from let. Cognates Cognate with Yola laate (“late”), North Fri… The correct English form is late, spelled L-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1Near the end of a period of time.
- 2Specifically, near the end of the day.
- 3Associated with the end of a period.
- 4Not arriving or occurring until after an expected time.
- 5Levied as a surcharge on a payment which has not arrived by a specified deadline.
- 6Not having had an expected menstrual period.
- 7Deceased, dead: used particularly when speaking of the dead person's actions while alive. (Generally must be preceded by a possessive or an article, commonly "the"; see usage notes. Can itself only precede the person's name, never follow it.)
- 8Existing or holding some position not long ago, but not now; departed, or gone out of office.
- 9Recent — relative to the noun it modifies.
- 10Of a star or class of stars, cooler than the sun.
Etymology
From Middle English late, lat, from Old English læt (“slow; slack, lax, negligent; late”), from Proto-West Germanic *lat, from Proto-Germanic *lataz (“slow, lazy”). By surface analysis, deverbal from let. Cognates Cognate with Yola laate (“late”), North Frisian leed, leet, lääs (“late”), Saterland Frisian leet (“late”), Dutch, German Low German laat (“late, tardy”), Danish lad (“languid, lazy, indolent”), Faroese, Icelandic latur (“lazy”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish lat (“lazy”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐍄𐍃 (lats, “lazy, slothful”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alte,laet,llate,ltae
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of late - 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 “late”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-A-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /leɪt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “le” - see the side-by-side comparison. late vs le
- 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.