teal
/tiːl/
"teal" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“teal” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #21,093 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #21,093
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of various small freshwater ducks of the genus Anas that are brightly coloured and have short necks.
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 | teal |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tiːl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #21,093 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “teal” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for teal is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tiːl/. Corpus data places it at rank #21,093 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for teal, with forms such as "etal", "teall", and "tela". 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, "TL", "ten", "Ted", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tele, probably from an unrecorded Old English *tǣle, cognate with West Frisian tjilling (“teal”), Middle Dutch teling (“teal”) (modern Dutch taling), Middle Low German telink, from Proto-Germanic *tailijaz, of unknown ultimate origin, wi… The correct English form is teal, spelled T-E-A-L.
Definition
- 1Any of various small freshwater ducks of the genus Anas that are brightly coloured and have short necks.
- 2A dark, somewhat bluish-green colour; a dark cyan.
- 3A teal independent.
Etymology
From Middle English tele, probably from an unrecorded Old English *tǣle, cognate with West Frisian tjilling (“teal”), Middle Dutch teling (“teal”) (modern Dutch taling), Middle Low German telink, from Proto-Germanic *tailijaz, of unknown ultimate origin, with no cognates outside of Germanic. As the name of a shade of dark greenish-blue like the color patterns on the fowl's head and wings, it is attested from 1923. The Australian political sense derives from the colour teal being intermediate between green (signifying environmentalism) and blue (signifying the conservative Australian Liberal Party).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etal,teall,tela,tteal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of teal - 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 “teal”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-E-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tiːl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “TL” - see the side-by-side comparison. teal vs TL
- 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.