older
/ˈəʊldə/
"older" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“older” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,278 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #1,278
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - comparative form of old: more old, elder, senior
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 | older |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈəʊldə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,278 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “older” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for older is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈəʊldə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,278 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "comparative form of old: more old, elder, senior".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for older, with forms such as "loder", "odler", and "oldder". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ole", "over", "Olds", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is older, spelled O-L-D-E-R.
Definition
- 1comparative form of old: more old, elder, senior
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: loder,odler,oldder,olderr,oldre,oledr,ollder
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of older - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “older”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is O-L-D-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈəʊldə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ole” - see the side-by-side comparison. older vs ole
- 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.