late
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "late", 4-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 "late" 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 "late" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
late is anEnglishadj. It means: Near the end of a period of time. Pronounced /leɪt/. It ranks #456 in English word frequency. Often confused with le and Lt.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | late |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /leɪt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #456 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for late is 4 letters long, classified as anadj, 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 Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for late, with forms such as "alte", "laet", and "llate". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "le", "Lt", "lot", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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… 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 late, spelled L-A-T-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
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
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for late
Misspelling Variants of "late"
Frequency rank: #456 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "late"?
What does "late" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "late"?
How do you pronounce "late"?
What is the origin of the word "late"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: