right away

adv

"right-away" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“right away” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Very soon; quickly; immediately.

Corpus desk

Index EN-right-away · right away · English

right away · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "R" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for right away
PropertyValue
Headwordright away
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdverb
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “right away” in English

right awayfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

right away is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for right away, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is right away, spelled R-I-G-H-T- -A-W-A-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Very soon; quickly; immediately.
  2. 2
    The traditional call to the driver of a train or other conveyance intimating that it is safe to move off immediately.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how right away appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. This item is urgent, so please start on it right away.
  2. The locomotive was the now inevitable American 2-8-0, No. 2623. There she stood, effectively blocking the level crossing, simmering gently, massively inert. It was almost dark, and one's final sight was of her high, firelit cab, the enginemen nonchalantly leaning out, waiting for the right-away, while impatient road convoys piled up on both sides of the c…

Synonyms

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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "right away"?
"right away" is spelled R-I-G-H-T- -A-W-A-Y.
What does "right away" mean?
As an adverb, "right away" means: Very soon; quickly; immediately.
What language does "right away" come from?
"right away" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list