welcome
/ˈwɛl.kəm/
"welcome" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“welcome” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,113 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #1,113
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Whose arrival is a cause of joy; received with gladness; admitted willingly to the house, entertainment, or company.
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 | welcome |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈwɛl.kəm/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,113 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “welcome” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for welcome is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɛl.kəm/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,113 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 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for welcome, with forms such as "ewlcome", "weclome", and "welccome". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "welcomed", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English welcome, wolcume, wulcume, wilcume, from Old English wilcuma (“a wished-for guest”; compare also wilcume (“welcome!”, interjection)), from Proto-West Germanic *willjakwemō, from Proto-Germanic *wiljakwemô (“a wished-for arrival or guest”… The correct English form is welcome, spelled W-E-L-C-O-M-E.
Definition
- 1Whose arrival is a cause of joy; received with gladness; admitted willingly to the house, entertainment, or company.
- 2Producing gladness.
- 3Followed by to: free to have or enjoy gratuitously.
Etymology
From Middle English welcome, wolcume, wulcume, wilcume, from Old English wilcuma (“a wished-for guest”; compare also wilcume (“welcome!”, interjection)), from Proto-West Germanic *willjakwemō, from Proto-Germanic *wiljakwemô (“a wished-for arrival or guest”), possibly from *wiljakwemaną (“to be welcome”), equivalent to will (“desire”) + come (“comer, arrival”). The component wil- was replaced by wel- when the sense “guest” of the second component was no longer understood, likely under influence from the adverb well. Cognates Cognate with Scots walcome, Yola welcome, welkome, North Frisian welkimen, Saterland Frisian wilkemen, wäilkeemen, wülkemen, West Frisian wolkom, Alemannic German wol chomne, wolgcheemen, woul chemne, wéllkòmm, Cimbrian bóolkhèmm, Dutch welkom (earlier willecome), German willkommen, German Low German willkamen, Limburgish welkom, wéllekemm, Luxembourgish wëllkomm, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål velkommen, Elfdalian welkumin, Faroese vælkomin, Icelandic velkominn, Norwegian Nynorsk velkomen, Swedish välkommen, and Old French wilecome (whence Middle French willecomme (“welcome”)), from Germanic. The verb is from Middle English welcomen, wolcumen, wilcumen, from Old English wellcumian, wylcumian, wilcumian (“to welcome, receive gladly”). Similar constructions are found in Modern Greek καλώς ορίσατε (kalós orísate), South Slavic languages, such as Bulgarian добре́ дошъ́л (dobré došǎ́l), Serbo-Croatian dobrodošao, and also in Romance languages, such as Italian benvenuto, Spanish bienvenido, French bienvenu, Catalan benvingut, Portuguese bem-vindo and Romanian bun venit, meaning “[may you have fared] well [in] coming [here]”. These Romance terms do not derive from a Classical Latin root, as no similar construction in Latin is found to exist, but are instead presumed (considering the ruling elite of the Germanic kingdoms which succeeded the Western Roman Empire) to be the result of a calque from a Germanic language into Proto-Romance (Vulgar Latin; see Latin *bene venūtus, and compare perdōnō and compāniō for similar historical calques).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ewlcome,weclome,welccome,welcmoe,welcoem,welcomme,wellcome,welocme,wlecome,wwelcome
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of welcome - 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
How do you spell "welcome"?
What does "welcome" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "welcome"?
How do you pronounce "welcome"?
What is the origin of the word "welcome"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “welcome”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-E-L-C-O-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈwɛl.kəm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “welcomed” - see the side-by-side comparison. welcome vs welcomed
- 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.