whale
/weɪl/
"whale" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“whale” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,410 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,410
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any one of numerous large marine mammals comprising an informal group within infraorder Cetacea that usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.
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 | whale |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /weɪl/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #7,410 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “whale” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for whale is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /weɪl/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,410 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 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 whale, with forms such as "hwale", "wahle", and "whael". 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, "what", "wham", "wile", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos Proto-Germanic *hwalaz Proto-West Germanic *hwal Old English hwæl Middle English whal English whale From Middle English whal, whale, from Old English hwæl (“whale”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwal, from Proto-Ge… The correct English form is whale, spelled W-H-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1Any one of numerous large marine mammals comprising an informal group within infraorder Cetacea that usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.
- 2Any species of Cetacea.
- 3Something, or someone, that is very large.
- 4Something, or someone, that is excellent.
- 5A gambler who routinely wagers large amounts of money.
- 6An investor who deals with very large amounts of money.
- 7A person who spends large amounts of money on things that are marketed to them.
- 8An overweight person (usually a woman)
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos Proto-Germanic *hwalaz Proto-West Germanic *hwal Old English hwæl Middle English whal English whale From Middle English whal, whale, from Old English hwæl (“whale”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwal, from Proto-Germanic *hwalaz (“whale”) (compare German Wal, Swedish val, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hval, Norwegian Nynorsk kval; compare also Dutch walvis, West Frisian walfisk, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos (“sheatfish”) (compare German Wels, Latin squalus (“big sea fish”), Old Prussian kalis, Ancient Greek ἄσπαλος (áspalos), Avestan 𐬐𐬀𐬭𐬀 (kara, “kind of fish”)).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hwale,wahle,whael,whalle,whhale,whlae,wwhale
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of whale - 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 “whale”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-H-A-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /weɪl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “what” - see the side-by-side comparison. whale vs what
- 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.