pulley
/ˈpʊli/
"pulley" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pulley” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #32,139 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #32,139
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - One of the simple machines; a sheave, a wheel with a grooved rim, in which a pulled rope or chain lifts an object (more useful when two or more pulleys are used together, as in a block and tackle a...
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 | pulley |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpʊli/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #32,139 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pulley” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pulley is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpʊli/. Corpus data places it at rank #32,139 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for pulley, with forms such as "pluley", "ppulley", and "pulely". 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 15 confusable-pair relationships, "pulse", "pulls", "pulses", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English puly, poley, from Old French poulie, polie (“a pulley, windlass”), from Medieval Latin polidia, plural mistaken for the feminine of neuter polidium, from Ancient Greek πολίδιον (polídion, “little pivot”), diminutive of πόλος (pólos, “piv… The correct English form is pulley, spelled P-U-L-L-E-Y.
Definition
- 1One of the simple machines; a sheave, a wheel with a grooved rim, in which a pulled rope or chain lifts an object (more useful when two or more pulleys are used together, as in a block and tackle arrangement, such that a small force moving through a greater distance can exert a larger force through a smaller distance).
- 2Annular ligament of the finger.
Etymology
From Middle English puly, poley, from Old French poulie, polie (“a pulley, windlass”), from Medieval Latin polidia, plural mistaken for the feminine of neuter polidium, from Ancient Greek πολίδιον (polídion, “little pivot”), diminutive of πόλος (pólos, “pivot, hinge, axis”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn”). Associated with pull (verb) by folk etymology.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: pluley,ppulley,pulely,puley,pulleyy,pullye,uplley
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pulley - 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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Using “pulley”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-U-L-L-E-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpʊli/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “pulse” - see the side-by-side comparison. pulley vs pulse
- 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.