pail
/peɪl/
"pail" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pail” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #37,615) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #37,615
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A vessel of wood, tin, plastic, etc., usually cylindrical and having a handle -- used especially for carrying liquids, for example water or milk; a bucket (sometimes with a cover).
Corpus desk
Index EN-pail · pail · English
pail · rank #37,615 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #37,615
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH paganism
Nearest frequency peer: paganism (-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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “pail”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Oxley
Oxley
62,389 corpus weight
- paganism
paganism
62,387 corpus weight
- pail
pail
62,386 corpus weight
- palatine
palatine
62,385 corpus weight
- paleontology
paleontology
62,384 corpus weight
- parabolic
parabolic
62,383 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “pail” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | pail |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /peɪl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #37,615 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “pail”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for pail is neighbouring look-alikes ("pi", "PL", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /peɪl/. Frequency #37,615 among 4,417 “P” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for pail, with forms such as "apil", "paill", and "pial". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pi", "PL", "pay", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English payle (“bucket, pail, milking pail”), of an uncertain origin. Likely from Old English pæġel (“wine vessel, container for liquids, pail; a liquid measure”), from Proto-West Germanic *pagil, from Proto-Indo-European *bak- (“peg, club”), eq… The correct English form is pail, spelled P-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1A vessel of wood, tin, plastic, etc., usually cylindrical and having a handle -- used especially for carrying liquids, for example water or milk; a bucket (sometimes with a cover).
- 2A closed (covered) cylindrical shipping container.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how pail appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The milkmaid carried a pail of milk in each hand.
Etymology
From Middle English payle (“bucket, pail, milking pail”), of an uncertain origin. Likely from Old English pæġel (“wine vessel, container for liquids, pail; a liquid measure”), from Proto-West Germanic *pagil, from Proto-Indo-European *bak- (“peg, club”), equivalent to peg + -le. Compare West Frisian pegel (“liquid measure, fourth of a litre, half-pint”), German Pegel (“level of liquid, level”), Middle Dutch pegel (“half-pint”), Danish pægl (“half-pint”). Doublet of peil. Alternatively from Old French paielle (“frying pan, warming pan; a liquid measure”), from Latin patella (“small pan, shallow dish, platter”), diminutive of patina (“broad shallow pan, stewpan”). Perhaps a conflation of both.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- apil
- paill
- pial
- ppail
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pail - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "pail", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).