royalty
/ˈɹɔɪəlti/
"royalty" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“royalty” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #9,666 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #9,666
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The rank, status, power or authority of a monarch.
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 | royalty |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹɔɪəlti/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #9,666 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “royalty” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for royalty is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹɔɪəlti/. Corpus data places it at rank #9,666 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for royalty, with forms such as "oryalty", "roaylty", and "royallty". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "royal", "Royals", "royale", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English royaltee, roialtee, royalte, from Old French roialté, roiauté, realté (compare earlier Old French realted (“realm, kingdom”)), from Vulgar Latin *rēgālitās, from Latin rēgālis, equivalent to royal + -ty. Doublet of regality. The correct English form is royalty, spelled R-O-Y-A-L-T-Y.
Definition
- 1The rank, status, power or authority of a monarch.
- 2People of royal rank, plus their families, treated as a group.
- 3A royal right or prerogative, such as the exploitation of a natural resource; the granting of such a right; payment received for such a right.
- 4The payment received by an owner of real property for exploitation of mineral rights in the property.
- 5Payment made to a writer, composer, inventor etc for the sale or use of intellectual property, invention etc.
- 6To make more money from a book than it cost to run an advertising campaign for it; to make enough in royalties to cover the advance a book received.
- 7Someone in a privileged position.
- 8A king and a queen as a starting hand in Texas hold 'em.
- 9The bounds of a royal burgh.
Etymology
From Middle English royaltee, roialtee, royalte, from Old French roialté, roiauté, realté (compare earlier Old French realted (“realm, kingdom”)), from Vulgar Latin *rēgālitās, from Latin rēgālis, equivalent to royal + -ty. Doublet of regality.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: oryalty,roaylty,royallty,royaltty,royaltyy,royalyt,royatly,roylaty,royyalty,rroyalty,ryoalty
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of royalty - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "royalty"?
What does "royalty" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "royalty"?
How do you pronounce "royalty"?
What is the origin of the word "royalty"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “royalty”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-O-Y-A-L-T-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɹɔɪəlti/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “royal” - see the side-by-side comparison. royalty vs royal
- 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.