legato
/ləˈɡɑ.təʊ/
"legato" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“legato” is uncommon English (frequency #70,026 among 2,297 “L” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,026
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Smoothly, in a connected manner.
Corpus desk
Index EN-legato · legato · English
legato · rank #70,026 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #70,026
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH leaderless
Nearest frequency peer: leaderless (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “legato”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- lawmaking
lawmaking
29,981 corpus weight
- leaderless
leaderless
29,976 corpus weight
- legato
legato
29,975 corpus weight
- legibility
legibility
29,974 corpus weight
- legionella
legionella
29,972 corpus weight
- Letchworth
Letchworth
29,968 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “legato” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| 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) |
Long-tail rank of “legato” in English
Rare enough to double-check
legato is uncommon English at frequency #70,026 among 2,297 “L” headwords, classed as anadverb, transcribed /ləˈɡɑ.təʊ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how legato appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Play this passage legato, not portato.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "legato", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).