vole
/vəʊl/
"vole" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“vole” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #45,158 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #45,158
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.
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 | vole |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /vəʊl/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #45,158 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “vole” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for vole is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /vəʊl/. Corpus data places it at rank #45,158 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for vole, with forms such as "ovle", "vloe", and "voel". 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, "vow", "vox", "Vos", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Norn vollj, from Old Norse vǫllr (“field”), from Proto-Germanic *walþuz (“forest”). The Orkney dialectal term vole mouse, lit. “field mouse”, was introduced to general English by George Barry in 1805; John Fleming in 1828 was first to refer to… The correct English form is vole, spelled V-O-L-E.
Definition
- 1Any of a large number of species of small rodents of the tribes Arvicolini, Ellobiusini, Clethrionomyini, Pliomyini, Phenacomyini and Prometheomyini.
Etymology
Borrowed from Norn vollj, from Old Norse vǫllr (“field”), from Proto-Germanic *walþuz (“forest”). The Orkney dialectal term vole mouse, lit. “field mouse”, was introduced to general English by George Barry in 1805; John Fleming in 1828 was first to refer to the creature by the epithet vole alone. Displaced earlier names for these species which also classified them as mice, e.g. short-tailed field mouse.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ovle,vloe,voel,volle,vvole
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of vole - 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
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Using “vole”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is V-O-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /vəʊl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “vow” - see the side-by-side comparison. vole vs vow
- 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.