okay
o·kay/ˌəʊˈkeɪ/noun, verb, adjective, adverb, interjection
okay is spelled O-K-A-Y, 2 syllables: o·kay. The wrong spelling people search most is hokay: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 476 of all searches for the word. Okay is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of OK”. The plural of okay is okays.
How many letters and syllables are in okay?
| Letters | 4: O-K-A-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: o·kay |
| In writing | 115 times per million words; the 932nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, hokay, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell okay?
Okay is spelled O-K-A-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 487 of the searches for okay in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is okay?
Okay appears 115 times per million words in written English, the 932nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce okay?
- /ˌəʊˈkeɪ/
- /ˌoʊˈkeɪ/
- [ˌɔˈkej]
Okay has 2 syllables, split o·kay in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-okay.wav, En-us-okay.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-okay_(unstressed).wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with okay
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with okay?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as okay.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: kayo, oaky.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of okay
- okays plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- ok
- okeh
- okey
- okaying participle, present
- okayed participle, past
- more okay comparative
- okayer comparative
- most okay superlative
- okayest superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does okay mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Alternative spelling of OK.
verb
- 1
Alternative spelling of OK.
adjective
- 1
Alternative spelling of OK.
adverb
- 1
Alternative spelling of OK.
interjection
- 1
Alternative spelling of OK.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Okay in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense OK:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does okay come from?
A respelling of OK.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).