rival
/ˈɹaɪvəl/
"rival" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“rival” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,355 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,355
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.
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 | rival |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹaɪvəl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,355 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “rival” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rival is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹaɪvəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,355 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 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 rival, with forms such as "irval", "riavl", and "rivall". 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, "river", "royal", "rural", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Learned borrowing from Latin rīvālis (literally “person using the same stream as another”). The correct English form is rival, spelled R-I-V-A-L.
Definition
- 1A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.
- 2Someone or something with similar claims of quality or distinction as another.
- 3One having a common right or privilege with another; a partner.
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin rīvālis (literally “person using the same stream as another”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: irval,riavl,rivall,rivla,rivval,rrival,rvial
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of rival - 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 “rival”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-I-V-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɹaɪvəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “river” - see the side-by-side comparison. rival vs river
- 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.