legato
/ləˈɡɑ.təʊ/
"legato" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“legato” is an uncommon English word, ranked #70,026 in English word frequency and used as an adverb.
- #70,026
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Smoothly, in a connected manner.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | legato |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /ləˈɡɑ.təʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #70,026 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “legato” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for legato is 6 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ləˈɡɑ.təʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #70,026 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Smoothly, in a connected manner.".
legato has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Italian legato, past participle of legare (“to tie up, tie together, to bind”), learned borrowing from Latin ligō (“tie, bind”). Doublet of ligate. The correct English form is legato, spelled L-E-G-A-T-O.
Definition
- 1Smoothly, in a connected manner.
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian legato, past participle of legare (“to tie up, tie together, to bind”), learned borrowing from Latin ligō (“tie, bind”). Doublet of ligate.
This word in other languages
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 “legato”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-E-G-A-T-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ləˈɡɑ.təʊ/ (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
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.